2013

MANAGEMENT OF INNOVATION | SATHIASIVAM S/O MUNISAMY 7E1A8408/15439547

KANOPY STREAMING

DIGITAL REPORT

Total file word count 3,443Less direct quotes 409Less tables of content 76Less reference lists 437Total net word count

Table of Contents1.0 executive summary..........................................................................................................................2

2.0Company Profile and Background....................................................................................................3

3.0 Establishing an Environment for Innovation....................................................................................4

3.1 IP Strategies.................................................................................................................................4

3.1.1Intellectual Property code......................................................................................................4

3.2 managing organisational knowledge and innovation strategies..................................................5

3.3 collaboration strategies...............................................................................................................6

4.0Implementing innovation.................................................................................................................8

4.1Managing innovation and operations management.....................................................................8

4.2New product development...........................................................................................................9

5.0 Questions Form the CEO................................................................................................................11

5.1 question 1..................................................................................................................................11

5.2 Question 2.................................................................................................................................11

6.0 conclusion & recommendation......................................................................................................12

7.0 References list...............................................................................................................................13

8.0 Appendix........................................................................................................................................16

1.0 executive summary Kanopy was founded in the year 2007 by Olivia Humphrey. Kanopy was described as a

Netflix of the education sector. Kanopy is a leading global supplier of educational DVD and

online video content. According to Olivia Humphrey the most relevant to Kanopy streaming

service was the ‘intellectual property code’. Moreover, she has developed the knowledge base

of Kanopy through her experiences and believes experiences are also her strength to develop

her company better. In the collaborative strategy, she has cleverly planned to collaborate with

the Media Education sector and these have profited her in term of monetary and large

customer base. Kanopy also has identified that the United States is very active in innovation

and there is good potential to grow their business there. Hence, Kanopy has developed new

apps designed to raise student commitment in the new product development industry.

2.0Company Profile and Background

Kanopy was “founded in the year 2007 by Olivia Humphrey the managing director” (Kostoka

2013). Kanopy is described as a Netflix of the education sector. Kanopy is “a leading global

supplier of educational DVD and online video content” (Kanopy streaming 2013). They

provide stream videos and tapes to university libraries in Australia. Currently, Kanopy is

going global and has also expanded into Asia pacific region (Kanopy streaming 2013). They

have more customers in the United States rather than the rest of the world combined. Olivia

Humphrey has been awarded the ‘2012 WA Innovator of the Year Award ’ under the

Mitsubishi Growth Category and the ‘WA 2012 Commonwealth Bank Business Owner

Award ’ for the Telstra business women award.

Olivia Humphrey graduated as a psychologist from the ‘University of New

South Wales’ but later she decided not to be a psychologist. She moved over to London and

started her media management career in ‘BBC World Wide’. She also was marketing

‘Teletubbies’ and managed ‘Hi5’ worldwide and globally. Hence, BBC World Wide has

entered into the road show entertainment and she was the marketing manager. Olivia

Humphrey noticed that even though streaming video sites “similar to YouTube were very

famous with tertiary students, streaming tools weren’t being used to their complete potential

in the academic area” (Smarter business ideas 2012). In the past she saw many of the students

studying the similar topic and they would need to fight for the only library’s copy of a DVD.

When she entered Kanopy, the mission was “easy access of learning materials through

generating an exclusive website for all organization where altogether their online audio-

visual content would remain in one place” (Smarter business ideas 2012). Moreover, Kanopy

have identified great partners with some of the world’s most inspired filmmakers and

appreciated suppliers, presenting tertiary organizations entrance to an ever-growing library in

excess of 15,000 videos through diverse content areas such as teacher education, architecture,

culture and politics in media, health and safety. The vision of the company will be “to change

the way students learn through the power of video”. The vision is the heart of doing anything

in the service of Kanopy (Smarter business ideas 2012).

However, the timeline of Olivia Humphrey’s path towards commercialization of her

innovation has been illustrated in the figure 3.

3.0 Establishing an Environment for Innovation

3.1 IP Strategies

Intellectual property is defined as the “authorised right which outcome from

intelligent activity in the manufacturing, technical, fictional and imaginative fields” (WIPO

publication 2003). The ‘intellectual property’ is a category of distinct laws which is the

copyright, patents, trademarks, designs and etc (Bently 2012).

3.1.1Intellectual Property code

According to Olivia Humphrey the most relevant to Kanopy streaming service was the

‘intellectual property code’. The intellectual property code can be described as “the

requirements of this ‘Code’ will look after the rights of authors in all activities of the mind,

form of expression, whatever their kind, purpose or merit” (WIPO publication 2003). The

following, in specific, will be considered activities of the mind within the meaning of this

Code. For example, “cinematographic activities and other activities containing of orders of

moving pictures, with or without sound, together referred to as audio-visual activities”

(WIPO publication 2003).

Most of the innovation comes to the business platform is based on this code. For every

application that is quite sensational and Kanopy thinks that it is also their competitive

advantage. Then they have the choice to pay for it and no one else can use the code. The

problem is by patenting it, all the Kanopy competitors will access to our code. Which will

make Kanopy proud, but it will eventually create a very competitive environment. The

competitors also can access to the information of how Kanopy is doing their work. So,

anyone can actually create the same application that Kanopy has and if they are not using the

exact code that Kanopy have, then it is not a breach. In terms of the copyrighting the code, it

is very difficult thing to be done and timely expensive according to Olivia Humphrey.

However, Olivia Humphrey is in the right track because she has overcomed this issue by

continuous upgrading the code every month; So that, the code will be obsolete by the time it

can be patented.

3.2 managing organisational knowledge and innovation strategies

“Knowledge management, guides and improves organisational judgements as to how, when,

and where to generate and account for fresh knowledge” (Egbu, Hari and Renukappa 2005).

It helps training, education, on-the-job experience and technical refreshment. “Core abilities

and competencies are challenging to copy as well as deliver good benefit for the businesses”

(Egbu 2004).

Kanopy is a business which has a core competence by ‘low imitability’ whereby according to

the figure 4 it can remain positioned in the uppermost right hand quadrant. According to

Olivia Humphrey, she has developed the knowledge base of Kanopy through her experiences.

She also believes that her experiences are also her strength to develop Kanopy better. For

example, the experience in the media rights management, customer service and CRM, mass

market channel which is one of her big strength and also has great knowledge about

marketing because her background is about marketing as well. She has built the ‘cloud

operational systems’, where all the data or information is stored in the clouds so anyone,

anywhere can see anything, anytime. They also have intense training for the staff, where even

the staffs themself feel that the training is very intense and made complaints to the

management. In addition, these trainings also done so that every staff member is familiar with

every aspect of the business as that’s how they can add value to the business as a whole. They

don’t have meetings everyday but they have decided to have meeting every Tuesday and

Friday in a week. The meetings are compulsory for all the members because it will keep

everyone in the organization updated.

An absorptive capacity defines as “the capability of a business to identify the importance of

fresh, external evidence, integrate it, and relate it to profitable ends” (Volberda,Foss and

Lyles 2010). However, Olivia Humphrey has not used this absorptive capacity completely in

the Kanopy organization but it will be very helpful for Kanopy if they can adapt to the

characteristic that have been mentioned above.

3.3 collaboration strategies

The collaboration strategy can be defined as “the joint determination of the visualisation and

lasting collaborative objectives for identifying a given social difficulties, along with the

agreement of both organizational and joint courses of action as well as the distribution of

materials to carry out these courses of action” (Clarke and Fuller 2010). In addition,

collaborative strategy also explains about the importance of an organizational strategy that

balances social, monetary values and environmental.

According to Olivia Humphrey, she finds collaboration strategy is a very interesting element

in the business environment and she has also decided to collaborate with many international

media corporations. So, she was planning on how to get 400,000 customers in US with no

mediate financing. She made a clever decision by selecting their supplier which is the ‘Media

Education Foundation’ for collaboration. The Media Education Foundation is a company

based just outside Boston which has a fabulous collection of critical analysis of media. They

have created a very great brand image in Australia and particularly in USA which is their

home market. In the process of approaching MEF to launch Kanopy streaming service in

USA, Olivia Humphrey has mentioned that Kanopy have the Asia Pacific rights and they are

also performing well in the market. Media Education Foundation who is the leading company

in this market, questioned Kanopy, why would they simply provide rights to Kanopy. Hence,

Kanopy came out with an idea, whereby to provide their digital training platform to MEF and

in return obtain customers from them. In order to have a digital platform it will cost MEF

more than 100,000 of dollars. Hence, the deal that was proposed was considered good for

MEF.

According to Alvarez and Barney, “entrepreneurial companies are most at danger of being

occupied benefit of by big agreement partners when the only material they bring to these

agreements is a new technology” (Alvarez and Barney 2001). However, there are two things

happen in this setting. Mainly, to the degree that this new technology has market possible, the

large cooperation is regularly capable to understand this possible. Subsequently,

entrepreneurial companies in these agreements are frequently not capable to develop and

grow, even if their technology has important market potential. Therefore, while these

agreements often generate financial value, most of this value is adopted by the large

cooperation (Alvarez and Barney 2001).

4.0Implementing innovation

4.1Managing innovation and operations management

Innovation can be defined as “ an essential procedure concerned through reintroducing what

the business offers and the techniques in which it produces and delivers these” (De waal,

Maritz and Jen sheih 2010) .

The Pearson’s uncertainty map (Pearson, 1991) delivers an outline for examining and

understanding uncertainty and the innovation process. Therefore, Pearson’s structure divides

uncertainty into separate dimensions which is uncertainty about ends (what is the ultimate

objective of the action or scheme) and uncertainty about means (how to attain this objective).

Pearson's structure, presented in Figure 5, addresses the nature of the uncertainty as well as

the method it changes over time. The structure is created on “the dual dimensions deliberated

above, by uncertainty about ends on the vertical axis and uncertainty about means on the

horizontal axis” (Trott 2012). These battle-axes are then divided, giving four quadrants.

The first quadrant represents activities involving a high degree of uncertainty about means

and ends. The ultimate target is not clearly defined and how to achieve this target is also not

clear. In the area of second quadrant the end or target are clear. For example, a commercial

opportunity may have been identified but as yet the means of fulfilling this has yet to be

established. The third quadrant is uncertainty regarding ends. For example, to discover how

the technology can be most effectively used. The final fourth quadrant is the most similar to

Kanopy streaming services. The fourth quadrant covers “innovative events where there is

most certainty” (Trott 2012). Kanopy have identified that the United States is covering the

innovative activities and has the most certainty to grow their business better. In addition,

Olivia has mentioned that when the last time she went to the United State she got a lot of

interesting opportunities. For instance, she got new agents and alliances of online textbook

company as well as some academies. These show that Kanopy is also creating new services

through the combination of the United States market opportunities and their technical

capabilities.

Based on figure 6 the organisational characteristic that facilitates the innovation process of

Kanopy is growth orientation. The growth orientation can be described as “a commitment to

long term rather than short term profit” (Trott 2012). For example, Olivia has mentioned in

the presentation that Kanopy is also focusing on long-term vision, which is, they want their

videos to be really an integral part of tertiary curriculum. They also want to be recognised as

adding a level of depth to learning and generation of a Kanopy ‘community’ through the

social media. The second characteristic that facilitates them is vigilance and external links

which is the “ability of the organisation to be aware of its threats and opportunities” (Trott

2012). For instance, the new idea or opportunities of Kanopy is to talk with their customer

about what they want to obtain from Kanopy; such as the student circle, libraries and

academics.

4.2New product development

“In an increasingly competitive global environment, some successful firms must be able to

expand their knowledge base and develop new skills,” (Yang and Yu 2002). Moreover, the

firms fail to realize it will be left behind and according to history the leading firms don’t

sustain more than one generation.

So, the importance of a new product development (NPD) has developed intensely over the

past few years, and currently it is the leading driver of competition in many businesses

(Schilling and Hill 1998). NPD progression might be observed as a sequence of “actions, idea

generation, product development and product commercialization” (Yang and Yu 2002). The

new product development is one of the ways to strengthen the business growth and the

perfect methods of classifying the variety of growth options accessible to a corporate is using

Ansoff’s (1965,1968) directional policy matrix. In the interior of this Matrix NPD is

understood as one of four obtainable selections which are the market penetration strategy,

market development strategy, product development strategy and diversification strategy. The

four cells consider various combination of Product market option. The growth can be

achieved through external acquisition and internal development. In this situation, Kanopy has

developed new apps designed to raise student commitment, assist in teaching and curation,

and besides add level of gravity to watching the experience.

Therefore, they are using the new product in the current market whereby it is called the

product development strategy. Product development encounters “diverse consumer

requirements in a different technique it is less likely to use current competitive benefit than

market development” (Taylor 2012).

There are many businesses, particularly small professional industrial businesses, which

remain to operate a craftsman style method to product development. Hence, decision-stage

model symbolizes the “new product development procedure as a sequence of judgment that

essential to be occupied in order to develop the project” (Trott 2012). A goal can’t be attained

without receiving proper feedback from a task that has been completed. Besides, if the

requirement of feedback loops is acknowledged, the element of ‘information exchange’ as an

essential component of NPD flows naturally (Hart and Baker 1994). In this case Kanopy has

created their NPD by empowering the student to define their needs and wants to preview the

requests as well as the Patron Driven Demand.

The next activity in the process of NPD is the generation of business opportunities. It is a

process that can create business opportunities and lead the business to become successful. As

illustrated in figure 8 there many sources can be emerging in creating new product ideas. One

of the sources that Kanopy has used in the organization is brainstorming. However, Olivia

has mentioned in the presentation that they are doing some brainstorming session in the

organization to create new ideas and do product development.

5.0 Questions Form the CEO

5.1 question 1

Kanopy streaming service can continue to innovate to preserve the trajectory of being true

game-changers by the multi partner alliances because great innovations rarely originate from

a single individual or firm only. So, Kanopy have to find more contacts of companies and

customers in the other countries as well. They also shouldn’t focus the United States only

because if there is a downturn in the economic condition of United States, it will directly

affect the Kanopy relationship with their alliances in United State. However, if they would

consider making alliances with other countries, they might get more new ideas and

opportunities to develop their current products and services. While much research in

collaborative innovation assumes consistently available benefits and an exogenously

determined appropriation of these benefits, this study assumes heterogeneity and explores the

degree to which benefits may be endogenously determined (Brown 2010).

Kanopy also should strengthen the connection with supplier and customers to classify target

providers and clients for new delivery system. For example, they should create more effective

delivery process of the requested video to deliver it as fast as possible to sustain the

competitive advantage. Hence, they improve relationship with key supplier and buyers of

kanopy to cushion competitor imitation (Mascarenhas et al. 2002).

5.2 Question 2

Some of the challenges Kanopy will face in scaling up globally are challenging in the

international marketplace essential to internationally introduce innovative products, services

and processes quickly and efficiently. Kanopy also might face challenges in sustaining their

competitive advantage because if Kanopy don’t sustain it then they might lose their

customers and suppliers. However, kanopy will go through challenges in terms of technology

information to accelerate and increase the innovation production (Fallah and Lechler n.d).

6.0 conclusion & recommendation

In conclusion, Kanopy has the most unique business in the Western Australia. So, as

managing director of Kanopy, Olivia Humphrey has sustained their competitive advantage by

implementing the perfect intellectual property code in their business. They have well

expanded their business globally to achieve more customers and profit. However, Olivia

Humphrey has managed the business very systematically. She also implements the relevant

strategies in a business to have more commitment and good relationship among the

employees.

I would like to recommend Kanopy to focus the customers’ needs and to serve them better.

They also should keep theirs customers details; such as, the date of birth and send the wishes

in the email. This will eventually make the customer to feel pleased, and this might attract

more customers. As we all know, a company that cares customers will definitely succeed.

7.0 References list

Alvarez, Sharon A. and Jay B. Barney. 2001. "How Entrepreneurial Firms can Benefit from

Alliances with Large Partners." The Academy of Management Executive 15 (1): 139-

148. http://search.proquest.com/docview/210522005?accountid=10382

Bently, Lionel. 2012. "What is "Intellectual Property"?" The Cambridge Law Journal 71 (3):

501-505. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0008197312000797.

http://search.proquest.com/docview/1205329084?accountid=10382.

Brown, Kory Dee. 2010. "Differential Benefits to Firms Participating in Multipartner

Collaborative Innovation."The University of Utah.

http://search.proquest.com/docview/845929404?accountid=10382.

Clarke, Amelia and Mark Fuller. 2010. "Collaborative Strategic Management: Strategy

Formulation and Implementation by Multi-Organizational Cross-Sector Social

Partnerships." Journal of Business Ethics 94: 85-101.

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-0781-5.

http://search.proquest.com/docview/858921402?accountid=10382

De Waal, Anton, Alex Maritz, and Chich Jen Shieh. 2010. "Managing Innovation: A

Typology of Theories and Practice-Based Implications for New Zealand

Firms." International Journal of Organizational Innovation (Online) 3 (2): 35-57.

http://search.proquest.com/docview/763161472?accountid=10382

Egbu, Charles O., Subashini Hari, and Suresh H. Renukappa. 2005. "Knowledge

Management for Sustainable Competitiveness in Small and Medium Surveying

Practices." Structural Survey 23 (1): 7-21.

http://search.proquest.com/docview/216607230?accountid=10382

Egbu, Charles O. 2004. "Managing Knowledge and Intellectual Capital for Improved

Organizational Innovations in the Construction Industry: An Examination of Critical

Success Factors." Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management 11 (5):

301-315. http://search.proquest.com/docview/218647425?accountid=10382

Fallah, M. Hosein, and Thomas G. Lechler. "Global Innovation Performance: Strategic

Challenges for Multinational Corporations." Journal of Engineering and Technology

Management 25, no. 1–2 (3// 2008): 58-74.

Hart, Susan J. and Michael J. Baker. 1994. "The Multiple Convergent Processing Model of

New Product Development." International Marketing Review 11 (1): 77-77.

http://search.proquest.com/docview/224339216?accountid=10382

Kanopy Streaming. 2013. Kanopy: Expanding Educational Horizons.

http://www.kanopystreaming.com/about-us

Kostoka, Ana. 2013. “A teaching revolution: Kanopy's Olivia Humphrey.” Women in Focus,

May 18. https://www.womeninfocus.com.au/docs/DOC-2172

Mascarenhas, Briance, Arun Kumaraswamy, Diana Day, and Alok Baveja. 2002. "Five

Strategies for Rapid Firm Growth and how to Implement them." Managerial and

Decision Economics 23 (4): 317-330.

http://search.proquest.com/docview/206614268?accountid=10382

Schilling, Melissa A. and Charles W. L. Hill. 1998. "Managing the New Product

Development Process: Strategic Imperatives." The Academy of Management

Executive 12 (3): 67-81. http://search.proquest.com/docview/210530183?

accountid=10382

Smarter Business Ideas. 2012. How Kanopy Became 'The YouTube Of The Education

Sector'. http://smarter.telstrabusiness.com/awards/how-kanopy-became-the-youtube-

of-the-education-sector.htm

Taylor, Edward C. 2012. "Competitive Improvement Planning: Using Ansoff's Matrix with

Abell's Model to Inform the Strategic Management Process." Allied Academies

International Conference.Academy of Strategic Management.Proceedings 11 (1):

21-27. http://search.proquest.com/docview/1272101639?accountid=10382

Trott, Paul. 2012, Innovation management and new product development, 5th edn., Pearson

Education Limited, Essex, England.

Volberda, Henk W., Nicolai J. Foss, and Marjorie A. Lyles. 2010. "Absorbing the Concept of

Absorptive Capacity: How to Realize its Potential in the Organization

Field." Organization Science 21 (4): 931-954.

http://search.proquest.com/docview/725824476?accountid=10382

WIPO publication.2003. Intellectual property code. http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?

file_id=180336

WIPO publication. 2008. WIPO intellectual property handbook.

http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/freepublications/en/intproperty/489/

wipo_pub_489.pdf

Yang, Jie and Liming Yu. 2002. "Electronic New Product Development - a Conceptual

Framework." Industrial Management + Data Systems 102 (3): 218-225.

http://search.proquest.com/docview/234906439?accountid=1038

8.0 Appendix

Figure 1 WA Innovator of the Year Award

Figure 2 Commonwealth Bank Business Owner Award

Figure 3 Timeline of Olivia's Path to commercialization of her innovation

Figure 4 core competencies, imitability and profits

Low

High

Imitability

Non-core Core

Extent of coreness

Figure 5 Pearson's Uncertainty Map

High

HighLow

Uncertainty about output (the ends)

Uncertainty about process (the means)

Figure 6 The organisational characteristic that facilitates the innovation process.

Figure 7 Ansoff's Directional Policy Matrix (Trott 2012)

New product

Current Products

Current Markets

New Markets

Generation of business opportunities

Competitors’ products &

reverse engineering

Unexploited patent

Technology

Individual

Existing product Customers

and vendors

Senior and top managementBrainstorming &

synectics

Figure 8 source of business opportunity