Creative Industries Full Report

Other Business Engagement Projects:

Financial Services

Management Consultancy

Marketing Practice

Retail Sector

Project Team

• Dr Jonathan Sapsed

• Juan Matoes- Garcia

• Dr Richard Adams

• Professor Andy Neely

Indicative Management Priorities

From research to date, the following six themes have emerged as management priorities in UK creative industries. If you wish to comment, please contact Richard Adams, or click on the link following the descriptive paragraphs below.

1. The impact of digital tools and distribution
2. Collaboration and outsourcing relationships
3. Understanding how innovation changes business models and markets
4. The creative process
5. Management capabilities and skills
6. Small firms and growth

1. The impact of digital tools and distribution

Several factors have contrived to change radically the value chain and the division of labour in the creative industries. These include new tools and technologies, digital distribution, and opportunities for outsourcing creative services.

• What is the impact of digital technologies and tools on industrial organisation?

• How should integrators best exploit the potential for more collaborative working enabled by new tools?

• What are the effects of digital distribution on the digital content value chain?

• How should creative content developers exploit the Internet for promotion, distribution and sales?

2. Collaboration and outsourcing relationships

In the current turbulent environment, firms need to find focus: this could be a niche offering entailing alliances and collaborative work. Collaborating firms need to understand enough about their partners' activities to choose the right ones and to manage the collaboration effectively.

• How should this collaborative work be managed?

• How should firms decide whether to outsource creative activities to the growing numbers of specialised creative service providers?

• How should creative firms decide whether to outsource technological activities to the growing numbers of new specialised providers of middleware?

• How should the pieces be integrated?

3. Understanding how innovation changes business models and markets

New technologies present opportunities for innovation yet they also present difficulties in conceiving and implementing responses for established organisations. Experimentation and lateral thinking is required to understand and apprehend technologies and innovation that may potentially disrupt the usual patterns of 'sustaining' innovation. Creative industries are increasingly selling user ‘experience' as much as products and services, while user communities are developing innovation themselves and challenging traditional business models.

• How should established firms respond to disruptive innovation?

• How should firms search for new business models and innovations?

• What management tactics and strategies may overcome closed mindsets in established organisations?

• How should user ‘experience' be designed, delivered and sold?

• How should firms respond or relate to growing user communities that modify and adapt their products and services?

• How should policy-makers respond or relate to growing user communities that modify and adapt products and services?

4. The Creative Process

The extent to which the creative process can be managed, is a perennial research question. The traditional tension between creativity and business efficiency continues to be an important research theme, as new developments in management practice are introduced.

• To what extent can the creative process be managed?

• How do UK creative firms management practices compare to those in other countries?

• How do new digital technologies affect the creative process?

• How can they best be exploited?

• How should digital creatives be incorporated into the existing mix of disciplines in industries such as advertising?

• What are the implications of creative recombination of existing IP with new content for business models

• What is the extent of the diffusion of design consulting?

• How does design thinking and consulting add value?

5. Management capabilities and skills

There is a perception, backed up by several industry and government reports over recent years, that UK firms are strong on creativity, but less strong on the practice of management. Reportedly, management tends to be reactive at the expense of maintaining a strategic perspective. Identifying and developing new opportunities, and in particular experimenting and negotiating new business models, are activities that tend to be neglected.

• What is the level of professionalism, experience and skills of managers in the UK's creative industries?

• What is the typical career path of a manager in a creative business?

• How effective are the current training courses and infrastructure for meeting the needs of creative industry?

• How are people managed in the creative industries with regard to working conditions and pay, as compared with other industries?

• To what extent do creative practices and skills diffuse throughout the economy?

• How do managers identify opportunities to apply their skills in other industries?

• What are the barriers to exploiting these opportunities?

6. Small firms and growth

Most firms in the UK's creative industries are small, frequently self-employed sole-traders, and operate on a project basis. 'Scaling up' remains a significant challenge for the UK's creative businesses, and a proportion of managers working in the sector appear to lack the appropriate management and entrepreneurial skills and awareness to grow these businesses.

• How should creative firms organise as they grow larger?

• How is creative integrity maintained as the organisation grows larger?

• What are the barriers to growth?

• What are the skills required for self-managing creative professionals?

• How may public policy institutions assist in expanding entrepreneurs' networks?

• How may public policy institutions assist in stimulating innovation in the creative industries?

• Are the existing schemes appropriate for the creative industries, e.g. R&D tax credits?

• How may universities assist in stimulating innovation in the creative industries?

• How may public procurement stimulate the creative industries?

For any further queries please contact Dr Richard Adams on r.adams@cranfield.ac.uk

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