Literature Review- ExxonMobil Innovation
Assignment 1: Literature Review Handout & Rubric
Fortune 500 Company: EXXON Mobil
Location: Riverside, CA
Innovation: A mobile fuel subscription service that will fuel your car while at work, home, or any location. Customers can schedule appointment by phone call or phone App. On top of the mobile fueling, each visit will check the customers, air pressure, and make sure fluids are top offed.
Length: 7 – 12 double-spaced pages* *Students may find that they need to use more pages to cover the assignment.
Remember your innovation will fill a need in a specific community (perhaps the one you live in or want to live in). Your innovative idea should be practical, financially viable, and executable. In other words, you could not develop a new car line for Ford or a whole new chain of hotels for Marriott in an eight-week term. Once you have chosen a Fortune 500 company and that you want to develop an innovation for that would bring value to your community. Remember you will continue to research throughout this whole term and continue to gain knowledge. This initial research for the Literature Review will help to determine the viability of the Business Plan innovation so that you will not get to Week 5 of this term and find a “fatal flaw” in the Business Plan idea and have to start over (this has happened and it is almost impossible to recover from).
Introduction
In one (1) page, briefly describe the different opportunities and threads for your proposed innovation. You are to provide appropriate background information. The introduction is about a page long.
Literature Review
In a minimum of seven (7) pages with a minimum of four (4) subheadings (Fortune 500 company, innovation, demographics of customer, location viability, financial viability). Synthesize 15 or more scholarly and business sources (Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Bloomberg, Fast Company, Wired, etc.). You need a combination of both scholarly and business sources. You may want to include data from lawsuits especially those that relate to the industry, the opportunity and the competition.
Exxon Mobil: Demonstrate with data that the proposed innovation is a logical, necessary, or interesting choice for the company. Show that the Exxon Mobil company has the financial backing to support the innovation that the innovation connects in some way to their mission and vision. Also, show how this will create a new revenue stream for the Exxon Mobil company.
Innovation: Describe with data driven analysis (citation) what the innovation is and how this is truly an innovation and not just an extension of the existing business. For example, opening a Gap store in a new location is not an innovation as it is an extension and does not meet the criteria for a Business Plan topic. An innovation is NEVER offering training to the Fortune 500 company or any type of consulting as these do not meet the criteria for this capstone class. You can do something that has been done before, but it has to be done with significant process improvements (faster, cheaper, new target market, etc.).
Customer Demographics: Research and cite information about the potential customers for your business. So use .gov data for that search: http://www.usa.gov/. Prove with data that your target market is purchasing similar items, would have an interest, and has the means to pay for it. This is critical information as you are showing that the innovation will “sell”.
Location of your Business Plan: (Riverside, CA) This is to be tied to a location that is specific and identified. Information on this location will need to be cited. You will need to show data to support that there is sufficient land, manpower, need, and desire. All of this is to be supported by data (Chambers of Commerce, .gov on the location, etc.). You can also use the official city website for data.
Financial viability: Is to be clearly cited. Research here is to prove that this innovation can bring value to the marketplace, hence financial viability. It is not sufficient to build a Business Plan that just brings “good will” as that is too hard to measure. The business plan must show that there is a Return on Investment for the innovation. If you need help calculating ROI here is a guide: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/10/guide-to-calculating-roi.asp You will also want to have citations from Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Bloomberg, Fast Company, Wired, etc.
Conclusions
In one to two pages*, draw your conclusions as to how the data supports your innovation. Your conclusions need to be supported by findings in the Literature Review so make your Literature Review as rich as possible. Do not write a “marketing piece” for innovation, look to see what the data indicates.
Answer preview
ExxonMobil is a multinational that deals in oil and gas sector with its head office in Texas but with operations that extend all across the globe. The company deals with upstream production as well as downstream sales to the customers. The company already has a significant market share but could add to this through innovation (Rassenfoss, 2015). The main change that people are looking forward to in this case is the introduction of a mobile fuel subscription services that can fuel your car in the various places that you may be at whether at work or in your home…
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