Fiat Mio and Open Innovation
Innovation is a definer of the company’s prosperity in the modern business world. Emphasizing the gravity of research and development and innovative initiatives could be regarded as critical components of the firm’s success and profitability. It assists the company in differentiating it from the competitors while meeting customers’ expectations and their constantly changing needs and demands. In the recent past, Fiat was able to take advantage of this opportunity and introduced the Fiat Mio project. The company wanted to not only develop a prototype of the car, which would boost the firm’s revenue and increase worldwide recognition, but also attempted to revolutionize the decision-making process, engage consumers in these activities, and develop a user-friendly environment for information sharing.
In the context of the case study, both Fiat and its rivals gained a number of benefits, which had a positive influence on their financial prosperity and competitive edge. It helped the company to become one of the leading market players in the automotive segment and defined its substantial part of the market share. In the first place, these novelties could be viewed as the major drivers for a change in the company, and the critical pros included:
- Adapting the feature of crowd-sourcing;
- Increasing the loyalty of customers;
- Building a trusting relationship and connection with the audience;
- Enhancing brand image and world recognition;
- Making it responsive to the changes in the consumer preferences;
- Changing a way of thinking when designing a product;
- Optimizing the organizational structure and culture; and
- Identifying the principal concepts for improvement.
In this instance, the case study emphasized Fiat’s desire to adapt the concept of crowd-sourcing and take advantage of this innovation-driven strategy. This marketing approach was beneficial since it grabbed the attention of the masses and increased the awareness of the company in Brazil and internationally. Despite the initial focus of operations in one country, this new project and the associated innovations had an advantageous impact on the worldwide recognition and brand image as they required the consumers from the different parts of the globe to participate in the development of a new car.
Simultaneously, utilizing this advertising method had a beneficial impact on the customers’ loyalty as they were regarded as the significant participants of the decision-making in the firm while being viewed as the important drivers for innovation. It modified the understanding of the role of the consumers in the decision-making process and designing a strategy. It was used to cultivate trust and establish a rapport with the audience while increasing the revenues and maximizing the percentage of the clients’ retention. Overall, these matters had a positive effect on developing trusting relationships with the customers while having an advantageous impact on Fiat’s brand image and recognition in the world and Brazil in particular.
Despite a vehement influence of innovation on the customers, it also affected the firm’s values and the internal organizational structure of Fiat. One of the first advantages was the fact that it modified a way of thinking when designing a prototype and brainstorming new ideas. The processes changed traditional developmental approaches and extended a number of stakeholders, who were eligible to contribute to the company’s governance, revenues, and financial success in the automotive industry. Simultaneously, introducing this approach required implementing changes and cultivating new values in the corporate culture and altered the organizational structure of the firm. Now the customers were regarded as important contributors to Fiat’s success and developers of the corporate strategy as well as being decision-makers. Consequently, this change was a primary driver for the mission statement emphasizing the pivotal role of customers as the critical assets of the firm when creating a brand image and corporate recognition. It could be said that these principles had a long-term orientation and identified the aspects that require improvement in the near future.
On the contrary, despite a direct influence on the functioning and prosperity of Fiat, the company’s revolutionary thinking and design initiatives required competitors to adapt these changes and optimize their organizational structure and principles of strategic thinking. The main advantages included:
- Discovering the benefits of crowdsourcing and its potential;
- Understanding the need to reorganize corporate strategy, mission, and vision to enhance the firm’s competitive edge; and
- Adapting new concepts of prototyping and designing.
In the first place, understanding the new principles of a novel technique to encourage innovation such as crowdsourcing was beneficial not only for Fiat but also for its competitors. It increased the managers’ awareness of new trends in the development and design and underlined the need to adjust the firm’s mission statement to the tendencies. Simultaneously, analyzing this aspect can be a primary driver to introduce changes to the corporate culture and modify the overall direction of mission and vision of the company. In this case, this novelty implies that the consumer-centered tactic is gaining popularity. Consequently, engaging consumers in the decision-making process revolutionizes the current process of designing and prototyping.
To summarize the findings, it could be said that Fiat Mio’s project was beneficial for the company as it enhanced its decision-making process mechanism. Furthermore, it altered the role of the consumers in designing and prototyping procedures and emphasized their gravity in the firm’s success, market share, and profitability. In spite of having a substantial impact on Fiat, Fiat Mio increased the awareness of the rival companies about a new trend while expanding their opportunities and possibilities to underline their competitive edge.
The Real Innovation
Despite the central role of prototyping, it was not the only aspect that drove innovation and development in the organization. In this instance, it could be said that the real innovation implied focusing on the deeper changes, which had a substantial impact on the company’s functioning, corporate culture, and financial prosperity. Simultaneously, this term states that the innovative process has a critical influence on the revenue-generating opportunities of the company while not only taking advantage of the new features of the introduced products or services but also considering methods that will support these changes in similar situations. In the context of this question, it is vital to discuss all the potential changes that the Fiat Mio project contributed to, such as underlining the new value of crowdsourcing, social media, and clients in the development of a new product and establishing a novel market.
In the context of Fiat, the critical changes pertain to the need to modify the concept of thinking and to optimize the strategy while engaging the audience in the development of the ideas and notions. In this instance, one cannot underestimate that Fiat Mio modified the firm from the inside and encouraged it to introduce changes to the existing mission and vision statements. The modifications not only helped create a client-oriented design but also optimized the mission and corporate structure of the organization.
Alternatively, the real innovation implied introducing a collaborative platform to encourage people to take part in the discussions. The customers were discovered from a dissimilar angle, and viewing them as decision-makers and designers transformed the traditional perception of a buyer‒seller relationship and made consumers a core of this process. In this instance, this viewpoint changed the features of the market and determined the main principles of creating a distinct competitive advantage. In this case, clients had to be discovered as a part of the designing team since it assisted in finding customers’ touchpoints and complying with their preferences and needs.
Furthermore, it emphasized the gravity of social media marketing to receive constructive feedback and outcomes from the discussions with the potential consumers. This aspect also could be viewed as a source of real innovation as it affected not only one company but also underlined the gravity of technological processes to motivate the customers to deliver their ideas to the company’s representatives and executives.
Furthermore, it could be said that introducing these components altered the structure of the market by creating a new product niche or a group of companies, which prioritized the viewpoints of consumers when developing a design in the automotive industry. In this case, paying attention to features such as social media and development of the responsive platform would help not only Fiat but also other car manufacturers to improve their competitive edge and become flexible to the changes in the economic environment and consumer preferences.
Based on the analysis of the novelties and aspects highlighted above, it could be said that optimizing the process of designing and prototyping could be viewed as the major outcome of this situation. Underlining the need for the vibrant interactions and taking advantage of communication with the clients on the Internet could be regarded as the principle components of real innovation and development in the context of the automotive industry discussed in the case. Overall, a combination of these matters modified the main features of the competitive advantage in the business world, created a new group of the client-centered firms, and led to the rising popularity of social media business activities and Internet marketing.