Acc202 Management Accounting: Mid-Market Innovators Assessment Answer

What are mid-market innovators and what are the overall strategies and pricing approaches used by these innovators in order to develop their business. Why are mid-market innovators successful? Provide examples where appropriate.

Based on your analysis of mid-market innovators in the first part of the essay question, what challenges are there for incumbent companies?

Introduction: Mid-Market Innovators and their Pricing Approaches

The emergence of the mid-market innovators serves as a strategy changing disruptive force (Argyres, Bigelow and Nickerson 2015). The objective of the essay is to analyze the function of the mid-market innovators along with analyzing the strategies as well as pricing approaches employed by these innovators for developing the business performance of the companies. In addition the essay will also explain the ways in which the mid-market innovators area successful through implementing standards of “Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP)” along with the challenges those is faced by the incumbent organizations. The company selected for analysis of the pricing strategies of the midmarket innovators is Netflix and based on the analysis certain suitable recommendations will be provided in order to ensure successful business development of the company.

Literature Review

Baussola and Bartoloni (2015) stated that the mid market innovators are focused on attaining advantage of the tailored events particularly within the middle market based organizations. In addition a customized mid-market overview is offered for most current and considerable changes within the “Generally Accepted Accounting Principles” along with their impact on the mid-market organizations. Comin (2016) stated that two major amendments have been issued in order to permit the alternative reporting for the private organizations. These researchers also stated that the mid-market organizations might require systems for classifying, capturing along with recording transactions in complying with certain changes. In attaining superior business performance, most of the mid-market companies are employing advantages from cloud computing in order to accelerate the wave of emerging technology implementation. Dachs, Ebersberger, Kinkel and Som (2015) added that the midmarket businesses must consider embracing the ingenuity of the argument and virtual reality along with ioT in order to track business processes, anticipating consumer behavior al

ong with increasing growth. Coinciding with the rapid implementation of emerging technologies, more mid-market companies are also employing cognitive and predictive analysis in order to attain valuable insights within consumer base along with informing strategies related to maintain consumer relationships and pricing decisions. Deshpandé, Grinstein, Ofek and Kim (2016) indicated that the mid-market companies greatly consider managing cyber security along with information risk as their top technology priority that displaces improving the existing business processes. Implementation of the new security processes, detection along with monitoring efforts are the most vital strategic focus of mid-market  organizations along with considering cyber security spending in order to ensure continuous expansion.

FRSA and Reid (2016) revealed that amid implementation of these business development strategies the mid-market organizations are likely to face issues those affect the business functions along with their people. Most of the mid-market organizations deal with the issue related to their technology in attaining business development that leads in job disruption. These researchers also explained that as automation turns out to be an indecisive aspect in increasing number of individual tasks within jobs along with developing better solutions ad products in cheaper pricing strategies in order to attain high Return on Investments. Gaubinger, Rabl, Swan and Werani (2015) elaborated that the mid-market innovators employ better pricing strategies in order to create high consumer value and the high percentage of gross margin is more important than lower costs. Such consideration is maintained by the mid-market innovators in order to attain sustained profitability and growth. Guo and Zhou (2016) explained that the implementation of the “Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)” supports the midsized companies to improve their business metrics through maintaining process optimization along with enhancing the overall supply chain process. Such innovative strategies implemented by the mid-market innovators are observe to enhance the overall supply chain prices along with maintaining integration across functionalities along with increasing transparency across companies. Jones (2018) also revealed that this is the major reason for which implementation of ERP systems are recommended for the mid-market innovators in companies in order to attain market development and this can facilitate in attaining quick investment return. Such consideration is maintained by the mid-market innovators in order to attain sustained profitability and growth.

Analysis

The mid-market innovators are the privately held or state owned companies those are all in intense competition with one another that persuades them to be frugal and responsive to implement latest innovations (Kleinfelder 2017). Leaders within the mid-market companies deal with issues related with maintaining their competitiveness through making better use of technology in order to enhance the existing products along with services in serving consumers in a better manner. The mid-market innovators are observed to be successful in sustaining their position within the competitive marketplace. One such example of a mid-market innovator that attained an increased success is Netflix (McCullen and Eagle 2015). The organization thrived the competitive marketplace through implementing disruptive innovation along with implementing effective complementary technologies in order to develop a new operating model. Moreover, the Netflix as a mid-market innovator has also made creative inactions through introducing free “a la carte” services rather than traditional bundling along with making certain streaming service assemble on the internet that is focused on offering more personalized services (Melnyk and Dehtiarova 2016). Another major mid-market innovation implemented by Netflix through maintaining product differentiation by means of introducing personalization feature. In order to offer an exceptional consumer experience, Netflix has engineered an in-house recommendation system named “Cinematch” that analyses past viewing behaviors of consumers in order to suggest new and personalized content for them that served as one of the successful competitive advantage for this mid-market innovator (Ozer and Zhang 2015).

For the mid-market innovators pricing serves to be the major factor that impacts the operations of the companies along with having a vital role in all the business development activities of the organization. The mid-market innovators employ pricing strategies focused on attaining competitive advantages through ensuring increase in profit, attaining increased market share, price stabilization, cost recovery, attaining market penetration along with product range sustenance (Witell et al. 2015). The mid-market innovators are observed to implement effective pricing strategies in order to attain better competitive advantage through ensuring successful expansion of business n the international market. Moreover, the mid-market companies are focused on implementing suitable pricing strategies focused on suitable product pricing in order to new market successfully. The pricing strategy that is mostly used by the mid-market innovators are focused on price tiers that basically offers lower pricing for the consumers along with selling more of the offering with attaining less overall revenue. Moreover, Netflix is also observing to implement accounting innovations for attaining success in the global market (Ozer and Zhang 2015). The company has successfully implemented cloud computing technology in matching with accounting innovation within the international market. This mid-market innovator turned out to be a software technology pioneer through implementing cloud computing technology. This accounting technology has facilitated the company in maintaining personalized consumer databases and this technology is made open source by Netflix that can facilitate its consumers to reach it. Such technologies are directly associated with video streaming those are kept in privacy while the other general technologies are opened (Ozer and Zhang 2015).

There are several success factors associated with the mid-market companies as due to smaller market share along with established market, these organizations are highly motivated through the likely gains of implementing unique innovation strategies related with pricing and accounting in attracting consumers (Scarbrough, Robertson and Swan 2015). Competitive pricing strategy are most likely to be followed by these mid-market innovators for the reason that it can facilitate in attaining business development through offering innovative services at low prices to its consumers internationally. The companies also attain success through following the necessary accounting standards associated with innovation (Scarbrough, Robertson and Swan 2015). This includes abiding by the standards of “Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB)” the mid-market innovators considers implementing the measures of interests those are associated with the quantities of allocated resources between the existing and new business activities which can impact positively on their output. In following innovation strategies based on accounting standards, the mid market innovators ensure that the cost of product design changes for marketing purposes with no considerable improvement within the functional characteristics under their strategies of marketing innovations (Scarbrough, Robertson and Swan 2015).

Based on the analysis of the mid-market innovators certain challenges are observed to be faced by the incumbent organizations. The incumbent companies are observed to deal with certain challenges related with innovation management associated with money, time, people and technology. The midmarket companies are not capable to pay their employees as much as the large organizations and there are limited promotion opportunities that makes it difficult to find a relative employee to support unique innovation strategies of these organizations (Scarbrough, Robertson and Swan 2015). In addition, the companies require investing largely within the machineries, technology, people and acquisitions to generate creative ideas along with implementing suitable innovation techniques. In the mid-market companies the staff along with the leaders is highly busy in working within the everyday business development activities that the mid-market innovators find it highly complex to generate ideas along with selecting the suitable ideas to be implemented. The technological capabilities are increasing at a rapid rate it turns out to be difficult to realize the most suitable technology within which investment decision can be taken and whether this is worth such expense (Scarborough, Robertson and Swan 2015).

Certain challenges faced by the incumbent companies include attracting and retaining high quality staff those are innovative along with great fit within the organizational culture. The companies also faced issues associated with attaining sufficient capital in order to fund the future growth and current operations. These companies also deal with maintaining sufficient time in devoting to the innovation as they are busy with daily operational activities. The mid-market companies require enough staff to focus on innovation in order to attain advantages from nr technologies for serving consumers in a better manner (Scarbrough, Robertson and Swan 2015). In dealing with challenges, most of the mid market innovators are focusing on attaining success through implementing innovation within that accounting process by means of considering cloud computing in order to offer consumers with effective advice on their data. In addition, these innovators must also consider conducting big data analysis through implementing this accounting technique in order to provide meaningful advices on the prices automation as much as possible. Moreover, the incumbent organizations need to widen their information search, improve the information processing along with increasing the speed of the decision making skills. For instance, Netflix has implemented low cost innovation strategies rather than implementation of high-end innovation (Weiblen and Chesbrough 2015).

Summary of Findings

From analyzing the increasing function of mid-market innovators in attaining competitive advantages within the international business environment, it has been gathered that these companies attain high success rate through their innovative technologies (Rocca 2016). It has also been gathered that the pricing strategy that is mostly used by the mid-market innovators are focused on price tiers that basically offers lower pricing for the consumers along with selling more of the offering with attaining less overall revenue. Certain challenges are also faced by the incumbent companies which considers that the mid-market companies are not capable to pay their employees as much as the large organizations and there are limited promotion opportunities that makes it difficult to find a relative employee to support unique innovation strategies of these organizations (Scarbrough, Robertson and Swan 2015). To deal with such challenges the mid market innovators develop effective business development strategies along with implementing necessary accounting innovations to attain business sustainability. Through analyzing an example of a successful mid-market innovator it is revealed that Netflix as a mid-market innovator has also made creative inactions through introducing free “a la carte” services rather than traditional bundling along with making certain streaming service assessable on the internet that is focused on offering more personalized services (Thun 2018). Moreover, coinciding with the rapid implementation of emerging technologies, more mid-market companies are also employing cognitive and predictive analysis in order to attain valuable insights within consumer base along with informing strategies related to maintain consumer relationships and pricing decisions.

Recommendations

Through analyzing the pricing and accounting based innovation standards and strategies followed by the mid-market innovators through observing an example of Netflix certain effective recommendations are provided those can facilitate these companies to attain successful business development in the international market. The mid-market innovators are recommended to follow skimming pricing strategy as it is deemed to be most suitable in case the companies are focused on introducing high-tech products within the marketplace. After the competition starts to raise within the market these mid-market companies will be capable of being in a position of using the cheaper price levels. In order to attain better competitive advantages, the mid market innovators are recommended to implement necessary innovation based accounting standards that considers measuring the innovation expenditure and associated revenue when a new or improved service is introduced in the market in recoding efficiently that the research and development expenditure is included within more than one accounting period along with analyzing revenue associated with innovation based activities.

Conclusion

The objective of the essay is to analyze the function of the mid-market innovators along with analyzing the strategies as well as pricing approaches employed by these innovators for developing the business performance of the companies. It was gathered from the essay that the technological capabilities are increasing at a rapid rate it turns out to be difficult to realize the most suitable technology within which investment decision can be taken and whether this is worth such expense. To deal with such issues mid-market innovators such as Netflix implement effective accounting innovations such cloud computing technology in matching with accounting innovation within the international market.

References

Argyres, N., Bigelow, L. and Nickerson, J.A., 2015. Dominant designs, innovation shocks, and the follower's dilemma. Strategic Management Journal, 36(2), pp.216-234.

Baussola, M.L. and Bartoloni, E., 2015. Persistent Product Innovation and Market-Oriented Behavior: The Impact on Firms' Performance.

Comin, D., 2016. Technology and Innovation. In DRIVERS OF COMPETITIVENESS (pp. 295-299).

Dachs, B., Ebersberger, B., Kinkel, S. and Som, O., 2015. The effects of production offshoring on R&D and innovation in the home country. Economia e Politica Industriale, 42(1), pp.9-31.

Deshpandé, R., Grinstein, A., Ofek, E. and Kim, S.H., 2016. Innovation Equity: Assessing and Managing the Monetary Value of New Products and Services. Marketing Science, 36, pp.908-930.

FRSA, M.B. and Reid, B., 2016. Accounting for Innovation.

Gaubinger, K., Rabl, M., Swan, S. and Werani, T., 2015. Innovation and product management. Innovation and product management: A holistic and practical approach to uncertainty reduction, pp.83-113.

Guo, R.J. and Zhou, N., 2016. Innovation capability and post-IPO performance. Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, 46(2), pp.335-357.

Jones, D., 2018. Mid market focus: Keeping up the pace: more R and D changes. Taxation in Australia, 53(1), p.13.

Kleinfelder, K., 2017. How to Restructure and Optimize a Mid-Market IT Department for Aqilitv.

McCullen, P. and Eagle, S., 2015. Demand driven innovation in material planning and control: A review of early implementations.

Melnyk, L.H. and Dehtiarova, I.B., 2016. Innovation Vectors of Greening Economy in Third and Fourth Industrial Revolutions(Doctoral dissertation, Riga Technical University).

Ozer, M. and Zhang, W., 2015. The effects of geographic and network ties on exploitative and exploratory product innovation. Strategic Management Journal, 36(7), pp.1105-1114.

Rocca, F.C., 2016. Supply Chain Management for Frugal Innovation Product.

Scarbrough, H., Robertson, M. and Swan, J., 2015. Diffusion in the face of failure: The evolution of a management innovation. British Journal of Management, 26(3), pp.365-387.

Thun, E., 2018. Innovation at the middle of the pyramid: State policy, market segmentation, and the Chinese automotive sector. Technovation, 70, pp.7-19.

Weiblen, T. and Chesbrough, H.W., 2015. Engaging with startups to enhance corporate innovation. California Management Review, 57(2), pp.66-90.

Witell, L., Anderson, L., Brodie, R.J., Colurcio, M., Edvardsson, B., Kristensson, P., Lervik-Olsen, L., Sebastiani, R. and Wallin Andreassen, T., 2015. Exploring dualities of service innovation: implications for service research. Journal of Services Marketing, 29(6/7), pp.436-441.