Innovation Planning and Design Process - Essay Example

Running head: innovation planning and design process 13th March Introduction Innovation planning and design is the key factor to ever changing market locally and globally which imposes challenges to any company. Innovation must be emulated by companies that are focused at facing off their rivals in the market. It is through innovation that competition emerges in the market place. Planning is another key fundamental in an organization since if an organization does not have effective plans, then failure will be experienced. Design in a company matters a lot since uniqueness is the key to attract customers in the market place. The more a company produces different brands with unique design, the more chances of attracting customers. This paper seeks to discuss innovation planning and design so as to maintain stability, productivity and profitability in industries. Innovation planning process is not easy since creativity must be adopted in any company or in the market place. This is because is a firm does not involve innovation plan, this means that one must maximize the creativity of ideas so that the ideas that one has are put in place and they can only implemented, if one utilizes innovation plan. If one is a manager in any organization, the first thing to emulate is the goal that one wants the company to achieve. As a manager, one must state the goal or the problem that is going to be addressed and then have a particular target group. This means that one must be prepared for the project since the responsibility is not on the management but it is on the entire organization. Steps involved in the innovation planning process Participation A project that is started in any organization depicts a life cycle where all the entire organization has to be involved and be part and parcel of the project. A project should not be restricted to a specific project team since other member within the organization can contribute to innovation planning process by providing resourceful ideas or feedback. Budget During planning and innovation, one must consider the budget for capturing and developing the ideas since the ideas may even come from outside the organization and thus one has to budget accordingly. Resources Resources and the basic tools needed and capturing of ideas must be available and have assurance that the company will be able to provide the required resources any time they are needed (Davila, 2006). The facilitators must be considered accordingly since without them will mean that innovation planning will not be achieved thus certain amount of fund must be set aside. Timeframe Time is a limited factor in a project which one is focused at developing and implementing. This means that an individual must consider time to capture and develop ideas. In this step since one is not interested in implementation, then one should not take a lot of time to capture and develop ideas. Rewards As an organization, it is good to offer significant rewards for the best ideas. This could be small cash rewards. Alternatively, a contributor can be motivated by being taken for a dinner or gifts as a sign of recognition. If one was working with a team, it is imperative that an organization recognizes all the members of the team since they equally contributed to the project. Roles involved in innovation system design Creating new knowledge One of the roles in innovation system design is to create new knowledge in the market place. Innovation is being creative and coming up with an idea that is unique in the market segment thus attracting a lot of customers as long as the brand meets and satisfies the customer need. Innovation is the mother of necessity and so it is likely that the new brand that is in the market will satisfy the customer need. Guiding the direction of search processes Resources are always limited and this means that various technological options do exist so there is need to carry a lot of research concerning a particular brand and this will lead to further investments (Arrow, 1962). To carry the research variety of system components such as industry, the government and market have to be part and parcel of the problem. Facilitating the formation of markets When a new brand is introduced in the market for the first time, it faces a lot of challenges and only offers a very small advantage to the inventors or even none. Based on this fact, it is good to create a protected space for the new technologies and the only way it can be done is by formation of temporary niche market. This means that the inventors must first come up with market segment for the new product in order for it to be successful in the market. Facilitating the creation of positive external economies Innovation and design must involve exchange of information, knowledge and vision. This means in group, every one should be willing to share ideas. Similarly, an individual should work to achieve the vision set and thus satisfying the customer need and attaining profit from the newly brand introduced to the market. Importance of innovation system Innovation system does help the industry to reduce competitive situation in the market since of the uniqueness of the brands. A company will in turn enjoy stability, productivity and profitability in the industry due to the production of different brands in the market (Cohen, 1995). Another importance of innovation system is satisfaction of customer needs since certain market segment can prefer a certain brand. In order for any company to keep on truck of the competitive environment, it has to be creative and acquire competitive advantage in the market. Another importance of innovation system is to get total modernization of the market and the rapid changes of the customers taste and preferences. This is achieved due to the fast development of technology which is modernizing a lot of products. Innovation system gives the entire company a different look compared with other companies that do not encourage innovation and creativeness. This leads to sustainability of the customers to the company thus being competitive in the market place. Internal and eternal factors related to designing innovation strategies Industry maturity The base of competitiveness moves from one brand to a process innovation as a business matures. This means that after the birth of new industry, companies will have to compete according to the product differentiation and how the company has invested in the new product. Customer needs and expectation This external factor is essential for process innovation and improves process effectiveness. This means that customer needs and expectation has to rely on the industry creativeness in order to satisfy the customers (Caves, 1982). The customer needs and expectation go in hand with industry maturity since the more the industry creativity is high the more it is going to satisfy the customer’s needs and expectation. Demand Market demand presents the main factor of innovations since customer needs and demand are closely connected. Though the main area of concern in the market is selling potential, demand growth, demand length and demand elasticity. If the selling demand is low, then the company has to consider design innovation together with the customer needs and expectation in the market. Technological opportunity This internal factor of a company has an importance in the market demand since all the entrepreneurs are led by technological opportunities. Again the customer need is met due to the technology where the company or the industry will have to be creative and come up with a design that is unique in the market. References Arrow, K. (1962). Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Inventions. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Caves, R. (1982). Multinational Enterprise and Economic Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cohen, W. (1995). Empirical Studies of Innovative Activity. Basil Blackwell: Oxford Press. Davila, T. (2006). Making Innovation Work: How to Manage It, Measure it, And Profit from It. New Jersey: Warton School Publishing, Read More