Utilize creativity techniques for business problem solving

It is commonly accepted in the business world today that in order to reach and maintain competitive advantage, firms need to product-innovate faster and more effectively than their competitors. Having in mind the fact that firms need to gain and preserve competitive advantage, many a company needs to adapt their product or service concepts to survive and prosper in competitive markets.
Within the new product innovation process, the new idea creation and evaluation phases are paramount in order to avoid unnecessary product development expenses downstream or worse off, product launch failure. In order to shed light into this process of international product adaptation, we will recommend the use of the Creativity templates of Goldenberg and Mazursky:2002.
Assignment
The current assignment aims at analyzing the new concept ideation process based on the assumption that creativity is inherently a formal process with precise rules. It is our intent to resort to a process of induction from a series of design templates in order to show the complexities involved in the process of developing services for foreign markets on the part of a major food service company.
It is required that you research additional information to support your work. This may be obtained from a diverse range of sources and you are encouraged to research the issues in whichever way you deem appropriate. You are encouraged to source at a mix of academic journal articles, texts as well.
You are required to write an assessment of the creativity strategies of a major clothing retailer firm (Zara) operating worldwide. The company wants to launch a line of bijouterie for women and wants your advice on how to develop the strategic concept for such products.
You should identify specific age range and psychographic profiling. In addition, you should advice such chain in terms of which type of materials to use, general design guidelines and a careful assessment of market trends in the clothing market as it pertains to bijouterie.
The current assignment is connected with the following learning outcomes:
• Utilize creativity techniques for business problem solving
• Utilize creativity for design problems
• Appreciate the value of creativity in a business context
Project structure
The project will have an introduction, body and conclusion which will account for the word count. Bibliography will be required but will not be a part of the word count.
Referencing should abide by the Harvard rules and it is also mandatory. We suggest the project follow the following structure (not mandatory)
• Models of idea generation. When creativity can be planned (20%)
• Notion and practice of brainstorming as applied to clothing design development (delve
into the Zara process of design definition) (20%)
• Source of ideas used by Zara (clients, competitors, etc. (20%)
• Creativity templates used which are most prevalent (analyze each case separately)
(20%)
• Definition of analogical thinking, its implications for Zara design development and final
recommendations for the Zara management (20%)
Using the Creative Templates model of Goldenberg and Mazursky:2002, and Dahl and Moreau:2002 identify and analyse three bijouterie products present in the clothing market where your reside. Then, identify and rank the importance of a series of product features you have encountered that may have better solved or addressed consumer trends and or demands. Identify template types presented in the new product line-up so emphasize the most prevalent ones. Recall that templates are: Replacement, Removal, Relationship and Redefinition.
Use brainstorming to generate your own design models. For that you can involve a group of our friends whom, after being confronted with pictures of the new bijouterie models presnt in the market, should indicate possible trends, templates represented in the pictures shown and new design models that could be created.
Select the most viable models proposed (two or three) amongst those proposed by your panel.
Draw a conclusion in terms of what templates, sources of innovation and outcomes you have realized from your study. Indicate future areas of research.