Innovation Process Design - Essay Example

?Introduction A tough competition is everywhere around the globe. This means employment of challenging activities on the part of companies or organizations that are aiming to compete and achieve their competitive advantage. One essential move is go for innovation. Innovation is a process that requires more meaningful understanding prior the achievement of the necessary process or design that is linked to it. The work at hand first presents the key components of theories regarding innovation prior to the actual introduction of innovation design process applicable to a technological-based company. Key Components of Theories Innovation is a common way for companies today to initiate in order for them to reach a specific competitive advantage (Weerawardena & Mavondo, 2011). In order to achieve this, many firms are trying to establish the point that they need to ensure execution of strategies that are competitive enough to provide them the competitive edge over the other established firms in their industry or specific niche (Salunke, Weerawardena & McColl-Kennedy, 2011). In many technological-related companies, innovation has become the major point of their business, because that is one of the substantial ways by which they can compete and even set among themselves a cutting edge advantage over the other competitors to ensure a smooth flow of their operation or achieve a potential market share. At the most specific level, firms that are into innovation or are risks lovers are expected to provide unique product or service offerings (Cucculelli & Ermini, 2013). In this way, they can offer highly differentiated product or service offerings that matter to people. Many technological-based firms today from time to time have to produce offerings that are new to the market for the target segments to try and they remarkably eliminate old products in order to introduce success or opportunity for the new ones. This is common to take place in the mobile phone industry where old models will have to be phased out and leave a path for new products and gain from them. Establishing a new product or a unique one is therefore a form of strategy that a firm must embrace. Strategic business innovation is therefore one of the ultimate moves of technological-based companies today. They want to set a new way for them to be able to provide something that is new that matters a lot to their target market. In doing so, a clear business plan must be associated with the goal to innovate. Innovation is not just a simple process, but a complex one that it requires the most appropriate business model. Prior to the emancipation of this business model, every firm that wishes to go for innovation will therefore have to set a clear business plan for themselves. In this way, they can be guided on what to do next especially in cases when there is a need to involve the right plans. Business plans are integral components of a successful innovation process. After all, it requires substantial planning moments prior to the actual innovation process. These plans need to be considered because they fuel the essential growth or development of the organization as far as the concept of innovation is concerned. Innovation therefore is a forward approach that positively aims for advancement and growth (Colombelli, Haned & Le Bas, 2013). Anything that hinders this growth will have to be remarkably considered a contradictory approach against innovation. The backward approach might have to consider plans, actions or initiatives that are to produce backward results. In this case, no innovation will be necessary, because innovation as a process of growth development requires more engaged idea to embrace something new or fresh ideas for future enhancement of the business. In this regard, proper orientation of the company concerning their evaluation process is necessary or required because such move will have to ensure the emancipation of the right program or actions to be taken into account. Concerning actions that are allowing companies to move forward with innovation, not just the right evaluation process is necessary, but the ultimate gut to move with high level of experimentation in order to guarantee substantial result. Innovation is the right venue for experimentation because this corporate action seeks to understand the most effective or efficient approach for consideration prior to the success and obtaining competitive edge (Thomke, Hippel, & Franke, 1998). However, at the most personal level, innovation capability of an individual is said be associated with creativity (Chen et al., 2013). This means that innovation is not just a company-wide activity in general, but at the most specific and essential level is a personal concern because it leads the involvement of the creative potential of the human resources. Innovation Design Process Prior to this section, the work at hand just presented the essential theories associated with innovation that may lead to the formulation of a design process linked to it. To sum it up, innovation has been linked to formulation of competitive advantage by establishing unique or differentiated product or service offerings, appropriate plan, growth, experiments and personal level of creativity. Concerning all of these essential ideas, a specific innovation design process is formulated based on the context of intraorganizational process, a cluster of innovation and engagement of the customer in the design model. Based on the context of intraorganizational process, innovation requires the most appropriate process that will lead to competitive advantage. The entire process should have to be focused on the various organizational activities to result to competitive advantage at the bottom line. This means that a certain organization which tries to reach its competitive advantage should learn to consider what the other organizations are doing. This includes careful observations of the actual forces contributed by the other organizations in the generation of a competitive force in an industry or specific market niche. This is essential prior to the generation of more creative ideas and achievement of unique or differentiated product or service offerings. To make this further clear, the innovation design included in this context means careful observation of what the other competing organizations are doing, taking down all the essential or relevant information as the bases of what exactly has to be done prior to the achievement of unique products or services, efficient plans, growth and appropriate experiments backed with personal creative touch. However, at the most specific level within the context of an entire organization, the intraorganizational process linked to innovation must also mean efficient interaction and involvement of the various departments. For instance, in the case of a technological-based company, the marketing department should coordinate closely with the research department, down to the production department and quality assurance department. This is to illustrate the point that at the internal level, an organization must involve specific internal organizations as well, which must have to be essentially considered to work in a more systematic and harmonious manner prior to the achievement of the corporate goals. For this reason, at the context of intraorganizational consideration of the associated process in innovation there must be a necessary involvement of the following process. First, there is a need to identify what the other organizations are doing. This is to ensure that the right actions are to be created along the process and what creative means should be considered in the first place, plans to be employed, ideas to be considered, and the actual products or services to be offered to guarantee highly differentiated offerings. This guarantees competitive advantage, even if for a short span of time while the competitors will not yet be capable of doing actions that may well established their competitive advantage too. Second, there is a need to initiate internal control that would require dynamic engagement of the various departments within the organization. This is an essential move because in the long run, this will sustain the organization’s competitive advantage over the other organizations. The ultimate purpose of including this in the process is to ensure strong cohesiveness of the team that will eventually promote success because this is already a form of competitive advantage if employed the right way. Next to this move is the understanding of what differentiated offerings are already available. This will lead to the possibility of creating more creative product or service offerings that the market is finding for or will want to obtain. However, this cannot be right away implemented without prior considerations of other forms of innovative process. The first form of innovation should involve the implementation of innovative product research. This will have to employ creative methodologies in order to engage an organization in finding for the significant information on what products or services to produce in the midst of a highly competitive market where flooded by differentiated offerings such as in the case of a technological-based industry. The innovative product research will therefore have to consider not only the actual creativity linked to innovation, but the associated competitive advantage with it, which will have to take into account the formulation of highly differentiated offerings that are cutting edge and will have to make a great difference. In addition, in the age of intense competition and as innovation has become remarkable, the management of demand has become a strong factor for consideration, because it determines how to improve customer relationship and eventually place a high value for them. In this way, next to the above stated action is to employ innovative customer care. This is another creative means not just to manage demand, but ensure company’s growth in the long run. This approach primarily engages the customer in the process. Creating a key account for this matter should not be new, but to extend it further to become more innovative, customers must be involved in the actual decision-making process. Customers will have to feel that they are part of the organization and they are the first to decide as far as addressing their needs is concerned. Part of this move is to consider timely customer satisfaction survey and after-sales support. Customer orientation is necessary in this process too, but moving forward to higher than this must mean dynamic customer involvement. The products or services should rely on the level of customer satisfaction and feedbacks to ensure dynamic improvement. This can be literally done through online activities, but in a more sophisticated manner such as employing the social network media. There are many things to be explored in these areas as far as connecting to the customers and allowing their dynamic participations will be a great concern. Application As mentioned earlier, a technological-based organization is one of the most dynamic entities when it comes to innovation. The chosen company is Finland, the world leader in strategic innovation. The above process design talks about strategic innovation in the first place, which therefore must be essential for Finland. Finland as the world leader for innovation must be thoroughly studied. For this reason, a more dynamic and innovative product research and customer care. All of these should employ latest technologies, experimentations, suitable business plans, but in a way beyond what the competitors are capable of doing at the moment. If done effectively, there is a guaranteed competitive advantage in this case and even actual implementation of the right and appropriate creative means. Conclusion In a nutshell, the work at hand just presented the relevant theories linked to innovation prior to the formulation of an innovation design process that can be applied to a technological-based organization. Further justifications of the chosen design are presented in order to showcase the need to go for innovation especially in finding for competitive advantage amidst prevailing tough competition. References Chen, A., Li, L., Li, X., Zhang, J., & Dong, L. (2013). Study on innovation capability of college students based on extenics and theory of creativity. Procedia Computer Science, 17, 1194-1201. Colombelli, A., Haned, N., & Le Bas, C. (2013). On firm growth and innovation: Some new empirical perspectives using French CIS (1992-2004). Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 26, 14-26. Cucculelli, M., & Ermini, B. (2013). Risk attitude, product innovation, and firm growth. Evidence from Italian manufacturing firms. Economics Letters, 118(2), 275-279. Salunke, S., Weerawardena, J., McColl-Kennedy, J. R. (2011). Towards a model of dynamic capabilities in innovation-based competitive strategy: Insights from project-oriented service firms. Industrial Marketing Management, 40(8), 1251-1263. Thomke, S., Hippel, E. v., Franke, R. (1998). Modes of experimentation: an innovation process – and competitive – variable. Research Policy, 27(3), 14-26. Weerawardena, J., & Mavondo, F. T. (2011). Capabilities, innovation and competitive advantage. Industrial Marketing Management, 40(8), 1220-1223. Read More