BUSINESS INNOVATION: Đề thi IELTS READING 10/8/2024 (Actual test)

READING PASSAGE 3

BUSINESS INNOVATION

A new, ‘wonder products’ are getting harder and harder to find, nor should companies do to maintain in today’s ever more competitive markets?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines innovation as the act of innovating; the introduction of novelties; the alteration of what is established. Every day, for example, researchers develop new methods for enabling robots to climb stairs, the flying hover-bike, and DNA fingerprinting. Moreover, according to G. Hamel and C.K. Prahalad of the University of Michigan, strategic innovation is the capacity to re-conceive the existing industry model in ways that create new value for customers, wrong-foot competitors, and produce new wealth for all stakeholders. But, as Gary Hamel, the co-founder of the Monitor Group, thanks to risky markets it is often difficult for organizations to remain on the cutting edge of innovation. Hamel’s answer to this problem was to create the Harvard Business Review conference, dedicated to uncovering the companies that “remain in the vanguard of the revolution in management.” Built to Order by Michael Hammer, another influential author on the subject, described how the company’s failure to innovate eventually led to the downfall of a major firm, the loss of its customers, and its head of manufacturing who fled for his job. And as head of marketing, who did not want to repeat his mistakes when hired to lead the computer giant, Dell continued to dominate the business.

Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor, describes the innovator's dilemma as a tough challenge; expanding growth in saturated markets. Companies need to innovate products that consumers have not yet realized they need. According to Christensen, product innovation often brings more immediate benefits and is widely recognized because it results in tangible new products. But these changes are often coupled with major improvements in existing products for existing customers.

William Baumol, professor at New York University, argues that large companies have been making important innovations, but both based on what he describes as the ‘curse of innovation.’ Most of the top US economists have been investing most of their money in innovation and development spending in recent years. Innovators are the companies behind recent declines in productivity and investment, and they continue to improve the process of production.

According to marketing specialist Vijay Viswanath, companies today are operating on shorter and shorter timeframes. One of the ways that large companies are breaking into innovation markets is by transforming into business incubators, in which everything from successful ideas to new products is on the menu. Looking for blockbuster items has become part of the economy. In the early 1990s, the company followed in the footsteps of marketing strategist Vijay Govindarajan. Another notable innovator in the field of innovation is Kodak, whose strategies failed to sell Kodak’s first camera 120 years ago, when the product was so revolutionary that the company could forget about competition for at least a decade. Today, rival products can be found on the market at speeds that would have been unimaginable in those days.

Companies that fail to come up with attention-getting new products should not despair. ‘There are plenty of ideas,’ says Erik Brynjolfsson of the MIT Sloan School of Management. He claims that the rise of the USA’s productivity surge originates in a genuine revolution in how American companies are using information technology to reinvent their business processes from top to bottom.>> Form đăng kí giải đề thi thật IELTS 4 kĩ năng kèm bài giải bộ đề 100 đề PART 2 IELTS SPEAKING quý đang thi (update hàng tuần) từ IELTS TUTOR

Hammer highlights several large companies that have added considerable shareholder value through some quite operational innovations, using their knowledge and creativity in their home markets to improve their business in the American retail giant Wal-Mart. While retail is using the same strategy for its distribution of truck fleets – supplying just-in-time solutions to the customer, the direct to customer operations have become fundamental to the company’s ability to offer low prices, the platform for its outstanding success.

Companies are also being encouraged to eliminate waste. One notable example of such reforms in Southwest Airlines, a low-cost US regional carrier, is known for its unprecedented timing innovations that led to driving competitor US Airways. The Swedish packaging company Tetra Pak also used this style of innovation by moving away from its traditional business model, which required customers to dedicate machinery and supplies to its own packaging. This strips out many costs from the process and also makes it very difficult for the customer to switch suppliers. Like Southwest Airlines, a low-cost US regional carrier, is known for its strategic innovations with little disruption to the service.

In his book ‘How to Grow When Markets Don’t,’ Wisniewski and Moore describe a revolution taking place in marketing management. A few firms have tried to innovate to meet the demands of new generations. Air Liquide has found success with its strategies for a small group of buyers by meeting their specific needs. In return, the business has enjoyed continued success, avoiding becoming a victim of market changes or events, such as the changing energy markets.

Air Liquide had been a strong player in the industrial gas business until the early 1990s, when gas became a much more competitive market. In response, the company adjusted its product mix and diversified its supply chain by making acquisitions. With this change, the company achieved short-term success by spreading its profit risk, while reaping long-term benefits from its new position.

Other economists claim that managers are now transforming production lines into smaller production units within their organizations. For example, projects with potential should be hived off into independent business units, away from the stagnation of the status quo. The ultimate outcome of any one innovation may still be unpredictable, the process from which it emerges is now quite clear.

Questions:

Question 32-35

Look at the following points mentioned in the passage (Questions 32-35) and the list of people below.

Match each point with the correct person, A-E.

Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 32-35 on your answer sheet.

1. The need for companies to cater for ever more specialized sets of customers
2. An explanation for the recent upward trend in the US economy
3. An example of company personnel who resisted innovation
4. A shift in the way many companies are organizing their budgets

List of People

• A. Bhaskar Chakravorti
• B. Michael Hammer
• C. William Baumol>> IELTS TUTOR có hướng dẫn kĩ PHÂN TÍCH ĐỀ THI THẬT TASK 2 (dạng advantages & disadvantages) NGÀY 04/8/2020 IELTS WRITING GENERAL MÁY TÍNH (kèm bài được sửa hs đi thi)
• D. Vijay Viswanath
• E. Erik Brynjolfsson

Question 36-40

Complete the table below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet.