I Innovate!!

"I find that the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it--but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Innovation is the conversion of new knowledge into new products and services. Innovation is about creating value and increasing productivity, and therefore growing your business. It is a spark that keeps organizations and people moving ever onward and upward. "Without innovation, new products, new services, and new ways of doing business would never emerge, and most organizations would be forever stuck doing the same old things the same old way.

Innovation is the key driver of competitive advantage, growth, and profitability. There are many parts of the whole field of innovation: strategy innovation, new product development, creative approaches to problem solving, idea management, suggestion systems, etc.

Process of Innovation

The process of innovation is a rhythm of search and selection, exploration and synthesis, cycles of divergent thinking followed by convergence.

Step 1: Reasons to Innovate

There is nothing in this world without reason. Innovation is done to change something. In the fist step, a need for change is identified and defined.

Bessant and Grunt said, " Innovation rarely occurs as a result of a single motive but rather as an aftermath of diverse concurrent motives."

After strong interaction and feedback mechanism between need identification, awareness and factors (Economical, Social, Political and Cultural), a decision is taken.

Step 2: Awareness Development

To minimize difficulties of implementation and for success guarantee, data collection is undertaken. In very first step, acquire and organize information. The objective is to acquire knowledge and understand the functioning principles of new idea to increase expertise. Data collection and training are essentially based on scientific, technical and research activities.

Step 3: Opt for Innovation

Objective is to collect data necessary to explore strengths and the weaknesses of the innovation in order to determine the best.

Rogers, Nabseth & Ray, Bessant and Zaltman proposed various attributes to examine prior to any selection or adoption of innovation.

Rogers identified following key attributes as of opting innovation.

Relative Advantage - "The degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the idea it supersedes". The degree of relative advantage is measured in economics terms such as reduction of production cost, increment in productivity and saving time & efforts. The more relative advantage, the more successful adoption of innovation!

Compatibility - Innovation should be consistent with existing values, past experience and needs of receivers.

Complexity - A more complex innovation that requires new skills and understanding may lead to complex implementation and risk & uncertainty. Simple idea is adopted rapidly.

Other factors which are considered - tiability and observability in adoption of new innovation.

According to Nebseth and Ray, following attributes are considered to evaluate in adoption of new idea.

Technical adaptability
Profitability
Finance
Size
Structure
Organization
Management Attitude
R & D Activities
Access to information

Bessant identified ‘Complexity’, ‘Compatibility’ and ‘Champion’ as key criterias.

Zaltman proposed 16 various attributes to think upon in evaluating new ideas.

1. Cost
2. Return on Investment
3. Efficiency
4. Risk & Uncertainty
5. Communicability
6. Complexity
7. Scientific status
8. Compatibility
9. Relative advantage
10. Point of origin
11. Terminality
12. Commitment
13. Publicness VS Privateness
14. Gatekeepers
15. Susceptibility to successive modifications
16. Gateway capacity

Although adoption is decided in this stage, this is not "The End of Innovation Process"

Step 4: Planning

Objective of this stage is to anticipate events that are likely to occur in order to ensure the best fit between innovation and the context in which it is going to be operated. At the end of this stage, innovation is put into practice.

Step 5: Implementation

In this stage, idea or innovation is not just a concept. According to Voss " This phase is increasingly seen as the heart of the innovation process as successful innovation is often associated with effective implementation. Innovation is getting it ‘up and running’ in daily process.

Effective implementation is associated with the implementation ‘champion’.

Successful implementation is an output of: -

1. Accurate and adequate conceptual work
2. Greater interaction with other stages of the innovation process
3. Early involvement of the user
4. Continuous and organizational learning
5. Systematic approach
6. Multidiscipline approach
7. Managing implementation in an integrated way

However while managing innovative projects, we need to understand in which category does it fall? Innovationg projects can be divided in two category.

Radical versus Incremental Innovation Projects

Incremental innovation projects, due to low levels of uncertainties, are usually follow the orderly phase-gate process.

Radical innovation projects, due to high levels of uncertainties, use the flexible model.

Even though the radical innovation life cycle includes many of the same sets of activities and decision points, the reality of managing the process is strikingly different for radical versus incremental innovation.

As Louis Pasteur said "Chance favors only the prepared mind." Take any business even a small barber shop looks for innovation in hair cutting styles to differentiate itself.

Further Readings

Development Through Technology Transfer, Mohammed Saad
Driving Growth Through Innovation", Robert B. Tucker, 2002
"Relentless Growth", Christopher Meyer
"1001 Ways to Take Initiative", Bob Nelson
The Role of Tacit Knowledge in Group Innovation", Dorothy Leonard and Silvia Sensiper