Supplier enabled innovations

Case company has a role for persons handling the innovations registered to the tool. Responsi-bilities of the innovation coordinator are to take care that new ideas are dealt with and evaluated in due time, and further actions for ideas are agreed upon. The innovation coordinator has over-all responsibility for the activity of basket teams, (s)he assists the teams and basket owners, coordinates pre-evaluations and managers the pre-evaluation budget (idea process). Coordina-tor also coordinates activities, workshops and courses for innovation facilitaCoordina-tors, organize an-nual and communicate innovation activities together with the corporate communication unit.

Basket owners with the nominated basket team, in the other hand, leads the basket team and is responsible that ideas are dealt with in due time, makes decisions in unclear situations. The innovation coordinator assists the basket owner in all tasks. Basket team consists of the inno-vation coordinator and relevant business representatives and specialists. The basket team meets at least once in every quarter, depending on the need. Basket team makes decision about further actions which are approval, waiting or archiving. Implementation of an idea can be decided based on the expert evaluations and after relevant bodies have been consulted (experts, produc-tion sites, business units, project managers, etc.). The final decision of the approval and imple-mentation or archiving is made by the basket team based on the expert evaluation and after consultation of necessary bodies in the business unit, line organization or projects. Initiative for a new R&D project, however, is taken to the R&D project steering group. Flowchart of the innovation process is visualized in figure 27 below

While observing the case company's procurement department it became rapidly clear that the majority of the population are not familiar with the innovation tool or the innovation process.

During a unformal discussion of this topic, an anonymous source brought up: "I know the tool.

I also had an idea, but my colleagues were not enthusiastic for registering it anywhere. They were afraid that it might cause extra work for them and finally ends nowhere." It can be con-cluded that using existing tools need to be heavily encouraged. In the end, according to anony-mous source, registering the idea without team's support led to implementation in the business and in addition, a monetary bonus for the idea creator.

Figure 27: Innovation process flow chart

Existing innovation process model focuses to ideas coming inside the organization. There are two alternatives for proceeding with supplier enabled innovations: either procurement repre-sentative register the idea on his or her name, or the tool is developed with a supplier-module being added to it. Benefit of the first option is faster implementation: there is no need to wait for technical solutions and IT-work. Benefit of the second option is more professional way of working which involves also the suppliers to the innovation work. In addition, when knowing the supplier's representative that presented the idea which might lead to implementation and added value, credits and recognitions can be addressed correctly.

4 DISCUSSIONS

There is a certain theoretical article that is especially preferred by the in-depth interviewee and hence constantly brought up in discussions of developing case company's procurement depart-ment and supplier managedepart-ment processes. The newsworthiness of that article is continuously being criticized by the researcher and hence, vivid debate has been going on during this re-search. Due to the active discussion of the article in the case company, the content of it is not included to the theoretical part of the report but to the conclusions-part. Kraljic (1983) has stated that purchasing must become supply management. It is noteworthy that during this research, the argument is 34 years old.

"Few companies today can allow purchasing to be managed in isolation from the other ele-ments of their overall business functions. Greater integration, stronger cross-functional rela-tions, and more top-management involvement are all necessary. Every facet of the purchasing

organization, from systems support to top management style, will ultimately need to adapt to these requirements. Concrete changes in the organization will be required to establish

effec-tive organizational relations, provide adequate systems support, and meet the new staff and skills requirements."

(Kraljic, 1983)

Focusing only to operative purchasing tasks make companies vulnerable to competitive pres-sure. Value adding possibilities are achievable by enhanced strategic awareness, greater flexi-bility, and stronger entrepreneurial thinking. (Kraljic, 1983) It is nonsensical that all this has been discovered so long time ago, and notwithstanding, companies keep struggling with the same issues year after year. The idea of concluding this thesis was born on a Saturday evening, when randomly discussing with a farm caretaker from a small town in northern Karelia in Fin-land. He stated that everything has already been invented. It is essential to exploit what has already been discovered.

Thus, after summarizing the answers to the research questions, a practical guideline or mana-gerial implications for the case company is being presented. Guideline is based on case compa-ny's internal documentation from years 2009-2017. Instead of inventing anything new, case

company is advised to process all of the precious data, information and knowledge that it al-ready possesses. For sake of clarity, the most relevant supporting documents are available in appendixes. Validity, reliability and finally, suggestions for future research are being presented in the end of this report.