Reference no: EM13786407

Benefit and Driver, Huffman Trucking Company
Huffman Trucking Company founded in 1936 by K. Huffman, a native of Cleveland Ohio started with just one tractor trailer. The company major growth came doing World War II because of the demand for truck carriers to deliver goods for factories from the Midwest to ports on the East Coast. By 1945, Huffman had 16 tractors and 36 trailers and the company continue to grow. Huffman mission is to continue to grow and be profitable in a competitive business environment. Their vision is to be an exemplary company to their stakeholders, stockholders, customers and employees.

Huffman Trucking internal innovation drivers, which are things such as situations or events that happen inside the company that are under control by the business. Technology is the first innovation. The business has to keep itself abreast of technological changes. If the company is not running on the most modern technology, they cannot compete with other companies. Organizational culture is another innovation driver. Huffman Trucking has a powerful success spirit, and always embrace change and listen to staff and customers are said to be a forward looking company. This type of company is a risk taker and has done their business well. Financial management is another internal innovation driver and is the primary factor in any business. Without money, there is no business. In

Huffman Trucking, the finance management makes a decision about how funds are distributed such as purchases of materials, and assets. Employee morale has a enormous role in any business. The strength and confidence of employees in a company are critical. If employee's morale is low, then they will not do their job well and will not be happy with the company. On the other hand if moral is high then it mean employees are happy with both their job and company, which will increase job production.

External drivers of innovation are events or situations that occurred from outside of Huffman Trucking. The economy is the first external innovation and the most important. The performance of a company depends on the economic environment. Any financial fluctuations such as inflation or deflation will affect a company. Since Huffman is a trucking company, the variation in fuel prices will have an effect on their cost.

Political influence is another external innovation driver. Government policies such as new laws, tax policy can have a positive affect or negative affect on a business. New competitors entering into the business is another external innovation driver because new companies can introduce new technology, new ideas, and better prices. Customer satisfaction is what keep any business in business. It is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. "A study conducted by Martin and Horn (1995) suggests that increasing direct customer participation in development process in general and the use of information about the customer increases the potential for success, Stamm, B., V., (2008)". Huffman plans to increase the scope of offerings to its customers by offering services that add value to customer operations.

Innovation involves coming up with new ideas or developing the existing ideas in order to change customs and establish new organizational ways of doing things. At Huffman trucking company, innovation will benefit the organization in several ways; developing customer values through offering several solutions to meet new organizational needs, effectively meeting emerging market needs, increasing the productivity of the organization, increasing the competitive advantage of Huffman trucking company, increase employee creativity, bringing out a clear understanding of roles, increased responsibility in the organization and a larger investment in the company's human resources(Panos, 2012).

Encouraging innovation enables the employees in the company to openly speak their ideas on certain brands in the organization this enables customers to be provided with high quality products according to their preferences. High customer and employee satisfaction enables increased level of operations in Huffman trucking company. This earns the company a higher competitive advantage in the industry. Innovation is the key to success. Though innovation, better company products are created(Granillo, 2013). Better services are offered with high level of skills hence employee satisfaction.

These factors will eventually lead to employee and customer loyalty, which is highly beneficial to the profitability of Huffman trucking company.
Innovation is a form of change in an organization. At Huffman trucking company, the benefits of change will lead to higher organizational efficiency and effectiveness in its daily operations. This includes addressing the concern of employees, especially through the newly realized organization structures and management systems. This improves work quality and proper service delivery to customers. Innovation is also a major aspect of enhancing communication and encouraging dialogue. This leads to cooperation and a more productive working environment at Huffman trucking company.

Design is the process of refining and creating the alignment of a company. This can ultimately give the company a competitive advantage. The company needs to keep up with the changes that are being made in the industry.

This way they can remain competitive. An effective design strategy will do just that; it will build strategic capability. This will help the company with everything they do in terms of improvement. It will give them a better ability to money and people to certain areas within the company, therefore increasing the chances that the right employee receives the right information at the right time. That is very important when a company has many moving parts. An effective design also shows that a company is being very transparent in its financial performance of the key technologies products in which helps to maintain the readiness of its strategy. All of this is involved with the innovation of a company. Once an organization is redefined it will more than likely operate more effectively and this will reduce counteractive forces against it. This also contributes to people working with less stress and increases the communication throughout the organization. The most positive result that will happen is the leaders are cultivated and the start to see the opportunity to make a difference in the company as well. Most people think that organization design is just dealing with the structure of the company, however is involves dealing with the structure to achieve a mission. One must take a look at relationship between workflow, tasks, authority and being certain these also support the mission (asugahara, 2013).
The term creative thinking is an essential and critical term when exploring ways to benefit an organization.

Creative thinking is a way of looking at situations or problems from a brand new perspective that suggests unorthodox solutions. Creative thinking is stimulated by a structured process such as lateral thinking and by unstructured processes such as brainstorming.

In the event of describing how creative thinking may benefit an organization consist of creative thinking uncovering spinoffs, promoting options, fostering teamwork and bringing new ideas within the workplace and within personnel in the workplace or organization.
Uncovering spinoffs consist of solving an issue and obtaining information that can be applied to many other situations. Promoting options within an organization consist of utilizing creative thinking, and as an organization developing multiple viable solutions to a single issue.

Fostering teamwork within an organization enables a whole organization to be able to solve more solutions within an organization due to the more people within the organization involved within the organization, while solving a solution.

In the event of bringing new ideas within an organization consists of managers and employees going beyond conventional solutions and looking for new ideas that can help efficiently address problems that benefit an organization and workplace for managers and employees.
In today's fast paced mark place Huffman must continue to be innovative with it product and services that it offer. To remain competitive, Huffman must consider how to find and keep visionary leaders and how to foster internal and external innovation through design and creative thinking.