Hey everyone,
So I was reading a really interesting article (honest!) the other day about innovation within the health care and where we will likely be in a couple decades time. I'm not going to paraphrase the article because it's pretty much already shortlisted, so click here and you'll be transported to the website, it only takes about 5 minutes to read and some of the forecasts for the future make for great reading!
So what does everyone think about these predictions? How comfortable would you feel being operated on by a robot? Or having your checkup via Skype? Leave a comment below if you want! :)
I'll post a big blog soon, sorry for the lack of updates! 3 part time jobs means I'm getting very little free time right now!
Reference list
Health care of the future [online], found at: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/03/health_care_of_the_future.html accessed 25/11/11
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Sunday, 13 November 2011
Home delivery: Innovation on your doorstep!
Hey everyone,
So as promised here is my blog all on the innovation of home delivery services within the UK- again i'll try and keep it short and sweet! As Mullin says in 'management and organisational behaviour': "innovation (includes)...new processes and improvements in all major areas of organisational activity" (1996:304)" and one of the most significant improvements in many stores throughout the UK over the past decade is the introduction of home delivery.
Just looking at a couple of examples, Argos offer "a range of delivery services depending on the type of products you order" in order to coincide with the advent of their online store, the "second largest e-commerce website in the UK", with 21% of their orders being from their online store every week (working out to roughly 440,000 orders) Argos (online) accessed 12/11/11. Comet retailers carry out 1.3 million deliveries annually, equating to "13 home delivery platforms circa 650 employees" Presscomet (online) accessed 12/11/11. With such vast amounts of deliveries being required from these companies, their logistics department has a huge task on co-ordinating all these deliveries to ensure they reach their destination as quick as possible, which in turn does result in some issues. For example, one customer wrote on netmuts "I'm so annoyed with Argos. I was finally given a delivery date (6 weeks after she ordered) and when the delivery men turned up they brought the wrong items". Accessed 12/11/11. However, a majority of the comments on that site were positive and so this shows that scenarios like this are rare at best.
You can argue that home delivery is still in it's early stages of being used, and we can look forward to more innovative processes to come in terms of home delivery. Already standard home delivery has evolved into customers being able to pick and choose options such as express delivery, standard delivery, next day delivery as well as being able to choose within a 2 hour time scale when they actually want their products to be delivered. With the growing amount of customers who choose to use internet sites to do their shopping, we can expect to see home delivery to evolve even more, giving customers even more flexibility as to when they want their products being received.
I'm not 100% sure what my next blog will be about, I want to do something with the medical field so keep checking back and i'll be sure to update this soon!
Reference list:
Argos [online] found at: http://www.argos.co.uk/static/StaticDisplay/includeName/OrderingForHomeDelivery.htm#combo Accessed 12/11/11
Netmums [online] http://www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/house-garden-194/kitchen-household-14/376844-argos-home-delivery.html accessed 12/11/11
Mullins, L (1996)"Management and Organisational Behaviour"London: Prentice Hall
Comet [online]. found at: http://press.comet.co.uk/facts-and-figures accessed 12/11/11
Bibliography
Argos [online] found at: http://www.argos.co.uk/static/StaticDisplay/includeName/OrderingForHomeDelivery.htm#combo Accessed 12/11/11
Netmums [online] http://www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/house-garden-194/kitchen-household-14/376844-argos-home-delivery.html accessed 12/11/11
Mullins, L (1996)"Management and Organisational Behaviour"London: Prentice Hall
Comet [online]. found at: http://press.comet.co.uk/facts-and-figures accessed 12/11/11
Monday, 7 November 2011
More tricks, treats and innovation
Hey everyone,
So as you can see I went to Alton Towers yesterday and it gave me a good idea for a blog! Linking in from last weeks blog on Halloween innovation, I thought I would link both Halloween, innovation and the theme park industry together. Over the past few years, major theme park chains within the UK have seen the impact on profits when it comes to hosting events themed around popular holidays. For example, Alton Towers hold an annual "scarefest", which offers " tons of terrific rides, blockbusting attractions, amazing live shows, and weird and wonderful costume characters". (Scarefest online accessed 07/10/11). This years event was arguably the most innovative they have had, with a larger selection of halloween-based attractions and shows, plus an increase in the number of days the event ran on. However, it was not just the increase in attractions and dates that made this year more innovative, the attractions themselves were, thanks in part due to the increased pressure on designers to produce attractions similiar to the ones Universal Studios or Disneyland have on offer. Therefore, the attractions themselves had much more elaborate set designs and even more innovative methods in scaring guests (hiding the actors in with the sets, hidden compartments).
However, halloween aside, Alton Towers has become more innovative in a number of different ways recently. They have introduced a system called "fast track", to combat queue time problems. By inserting your card into a machine near the ride, you are given an alloted time to return to the ride to skip the queue, reducing both queue times and the amount the park have to pay on refurnishing the queue lines due to bored guests graffiting them. As well as this, they have become more innovative in terms of reducing the costs of running their attractions. Recent rides such as Oblivion have been sponsored by major companies (Oblivion by Fanta, Duel by Kodak) and so this reduces the costs of running the attractions as these companies have agreed to subsidise the costs of this as long as they get their product promoted around the park.
Sorry for making this bried, like I mentioned earlier I've already posted one blog about halloween so didn't want this blog to become too "same-y". Next blog I'll be talking about innovation with home delivery services offered by major companies within the UK!
For the link to the scarefest website, click here.
Also, check out my friends innovation blog! Click here to view it!
Reference List
Alton Towers [online] http://www.altontowers.com/ accessed 7/11/11
So as you can see I went to Alton Towers yesterday and it gave me a good idea for a blog! Linking in from last weeks blog on Halloween innovation, I thought I would link both Halloween, innovation and the theme park industry together. Over the past few years, major theme park chains within the UK have seen the impact on profits when it comes to hosting events themed around popular holidays. For example, Alton Towers hold an annual "scarefest", which offers " tons of terrific rides, blockbusting attractions, amazing live shows, and weird and wonderful costume characters". (Scarefest online accessed 07/10/11). This years event was arguably the most innovative they have had, with a larger selection of halloween-based attractions and shows, plus an increase in the number of days the event ran on. However, it was not just the increase in attractions and dates that made this year more innovative, the attractions themselves were, thanks in part due to the increased pressure on designers to produce attractions similiar to the ones Universal Studios or Disneyland have on offer. Therefore, the attractions themselves had much more elaborate set designs and even more innovative methods in scaring guests (hiding the actors in with the sets, hidden compartments).
However, halloween aside, Alton Towers has become more innovative in a number of different ways recently. They have introduced a system called "fast track", to combat queue time problems. By inserting your card into a machine near the ride, you are given an alloted time to return to the ride to skip the queue, reducing both queue times and the amount the park have to pay on refurnishing the queue lines due to bored guests graffiting them. As well as this, they have become more innovative in terms of reducing the costs of running their attractions. Recent rides such as Oblivion have been sponsored by major companies (Oblivion by Fanta, Duel by Kodak) and so this reduces the costs of running the attractions as these companies have agreed to subsidise the costs of this as long as they get their product promoted around the park.
Sorry for making this bried, like I mentioned earlier I've already posted one blog about halloween so didn't want this blog to become too "same-y". Next blog I'll be talking about innovation with home delivery services offered by major companies within the UK!
For the link to the scarefest website, click here.
Also, check out my friends innovation blog! Click here to view it!
Reference List
Alton Towers [online] http://www.altontowers.com/ accessed 7/11/11
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