Dr Joachim Timlon
Ass. Prof. in Strategy and International Business
Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham
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Teaching cases
Why You Need an Innovation Strategy: Ford Motor Company Turns Around with Electric Vehicles in China after Sales Made a U-Turn
The U-turn of Ford’s sales in China is hitherto unprecedented. After a peak in 2016, sales began faltering in late 2017, then nearly halved in 2018. Ford’s sales forecast predicts a further tumble in 2019. Ford suffered more from China’s slowdown than other foreign carmakers and the company warned that profits had fallen by up to 93 per cent last year. In addition, Ford suffered a breakdown with the local partner, mainly responsible for the manufacturing of Ford brand passenger cars for the Chinese market. The sales continue to decline and, like the rest of the automakers in China, Ford is facing a new normal of ‘low speed growth’ with more intense competition that may weed out weaker players. A recovery is a must!
This case illustrates the need for an innovation strategy that exploits technological changes as an opportunity for innovation, and helps local management make trade-off decisions and choose the right processes and structures for innovation to align perspectives and priorities to enjoy the power of integration. Could such measures turn around sales in China and, eventually, help the company regain its profitability?
When Impossibilities Drive Innovation Strategy: How Iris van Herpen Uses Water as Garment to Make Dresses in French Haute Couture
Novelty seeking - the tendency to explore novel and unfamiliar things - is linked to personality traits of openness to experience and extraversion and may lead to greater creative performance.
Uncovering the link between novelty seeking and creative performance is important because it could be used to manage interventions aimed at increasing people’s creativity. And if increased novelty seeking can cause greater creativity, this can potentially lead to the development of new innovations. Moreover, when novelty seeking is driven by impossibilities, it may lead to the pioneering use of materials that previously were considered impossible to use, resulting in innovations of sculptural nature and unfamiliar forms yet perceived as attractive and useful by customers. However, generating novel ideas is not always sufficient for creative success. Novelty seeking as an innovation strategy has benefits as well as stringent requirements, severe limitations and conspicuous risks.
Innovation Strategy to Control and Grow a Global Market Niche – A Case on China’s Design Queen Guo Pei in the French Haute Couture Industry’
On the catwalk, mythological dragons take center stage in creations by Guo Pei, founder of Rose Studio. As one of the first design studios in China, Guo Pei soon became the designer of choice for celebrities, with a reputation for innovative clothes. In the West, Guo Pei broke into the international scene when she dressed pop star Rihanna for the Met Gala. This case illustrates how an innovation strategy in a limited market niche can put a successful practitioner in the position of a practical monopoly.
Blog posts
About Dr Joachim Timlon
Joachim has a rare combination of broad experience and attainment on value creation through digitalization, innovation, and sustainability; he is equally at home with academy and business. As a teacher he is well experienced from institutions in higher education around the world, creating real life learning experiences that nurture and develop minds and talents. His research is practice-based using case study methodology to explore contemporary real-life events, such as tech Unicorns, that informs his teaching and advisory. His background is in industry with a proven track record of working in start-ups as well as in multinational companies, co-creating and attaining substantial and sustainable business results.