Rational Approach to Product Innovation - Essay Example

Critical Review (Topic) Summary of Journal Introduction: From the beginning two different yet similar ways to obtain knowledge have existed. The description of reality and the pattern of the society and nature have always been in excellent shape. Changes that took place in the society, technology, and science have lead to the existence of both the traditions in the last century. A long search for order, system, steadiness, harmony, and direction can be clearly seen in the first tradition. The main aim was to eliminate lack of confidence and disorder through using the methodical instruction of people, environment and culture. This tries to create a complete realistic system for forming a motive with the phenomena and looks at rational reasoning as a problem of making realistic choices by including alternatives within a well defined system of principles. Rational Approach to Product Innovation: The notion that the progress humans make can be reached through connecting natural science and innovations, this also had another significant impact. Due the existence of this sort of principles it was possible for the jobs in the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century to attain remarkable success in regulating technology with humans. Plans regarding designs and strategies and scientific investigation evolved in the models of the effective utilization of technical logic and positivism. Process of Product Innovation in a Sequence: It is also believed that there should be a procedure for producing something new, it should have a sequence. A study shows that approximately 80 percent of the total North American companies take up a stage after stage procedure as an abstract and functioning plan for product innovation which is known and the stage gate process. As a tradition of social progress a logical view of inventing a new product is present which is based on scientific calculation, encouraging a form of production process that takes place in a sequence which is directed by controlled by means and method based on science. Firms can make effective use of technology for the innovation of fresh products which help the firm in achieving its aims. . It was pointed out that everyone is logical and emotional both to an extent, this also applies on innovating a new product as people involved in the process go through competition and conflicting ideas. An organization needs to focus mainly on innovation if it wants to be successful, this is proven by phrases like “innovate or die”. (Attar, Shahabi&Nasiri, 2012) Management of Risks and Rewards in Product Innovation: The concept of uncertainty and threat of innovation is seen in rational people today. They believe that risk and uncertainty both exist together in managing and coming up with something new. They also say that unpleasant events that interrupt the production process are very likely to happen. Firms now try to evaluate the risks beforehand and it helps them in designing tools and systems to prevent the risks from affecting the ongoing production process. The firms should adopt a “language of calculation” which promotes the idea of a general and persuasive structure to find expected balance between conflicts of value. This will help an organization to prove to its stakeholders that the firm is making all possible efforts to manage and foresee any unpleasant disruptions in the product innovation process. Findings Stage-Gate Process It is an intangible and effective plan to take a new product from the scratch to its launch. It splits the hard work into different phases which are further divided by the decisions of management. The process of launching a new product starts with a design and this process finishes with the launch of the product. The phases that are a part of the stage-gate process can be observed as an active process. This process is broken into two parts; activities and decision making. Activities part is where the actual production takes place. Those working on this phase collect information that is required to go to the next stage. There are five main stages; discovery, scoping, build a business plan, growth, trial and validation and finally the launch. There are three phases. The first is activities where the entire team working on the project needs to brainstorm their plan. The second is integrated analysis in this phase, the team needs to analyse the results of the operational activities which are drawn from cross functional communication. The third phase is deliverables, in this phase the team needs to show the product of the integrated analysis, this needs to be given to the decision making gate next. (Product Development Institute, 2014) The Stage-Gate process is extremely beneficial for a firm. This process can help a firm to recognize the difficulties and threats that exist in the research and development process of the firm. When a risk is identified the firm has is open to a number of options for example it can continue with the plan or stop the plan and reconsider its plan and revise it. This process also assists firms that involve a number of Subrecipients. This enables it advance at an suitable speed. (Bulletin Board, 2012) The Innovation Funnel To administer the process of product innovation nowadays majority organizations use the concept of innovation funnel. The fundamental idea is that the firm carrying out the research and development has many plans that require to be checked. In this process the firm studies the market statistics, customer information etc and what are the opportunities available for product innovation. The firm sees which opportunity suits it the most. Then the firm plans according to the opportunities which products are most suitable for the firm. After this comes the evaluation phase, here the firms analysis its customers and what they are willing to buy, they will also take feedback from them. After feedback is collected from the customers, the firm assesses which product will be the most successful and a start working on that product, and thus the product is launched in the market. (Barber, 2011) Various types of innovation funnel exists, this is where information regarding innovation comes from, however this is a traditional system. With the passage of time other means for example “agile development” and “open development” are now used often for the process of product innovation. The fact that the funnel model is very simple makes it easier for all the firms across different industries to use this model; however this simple model does not consist of all details that are needed to actually launch a new product. (Barber, 2011) Risk Management Risk management has emerged into a primary role in most of the large organizations; however most of the times risk evaluation makes the organizations so unenthusiastic about production innovation that it leads to these firms being paralyzed in terms of product innovation. A main problem with this is that that managers who are calculating the risks, who also have to give reports to those above them, is inclined towards believing that he is something above than the other employees. His function needs to be to assist in creating such an organizational culture that gives confidence to its employees regarding taking risks. This creates flexibility in the firm without effecting progress. He also needs to persuade the employees to focus more on joint effort rather than being negative about taking risks. This will allow the employees to work hard and more innovative which will further enhance the product innovation process. (Crawford, 2014) Conclusion Organizations are often sceptical about product innovations; this may be due to the risks and uncertainty that comes along with product innovation. The process of innovation should be broken into different stages. This will help the firms to analyse the process of innovation in every stage. Each stage has its own unique characteristics and makes way for the next stage. This is rational process as it will enable the firm to predict all the threats and risks that can arise from the development of a certain product. The firm can thus decide whether it wants to continue, stop or alter their plan regarding product innovation. Using the Funnel model was another way to analyse if the product innovation approach is rational. The firms that spend a large sum of money of research and development need to carry out these processes to ensure that their product will be a success. This process analyses the product on each stage, the most effective role of this model is that it provides the firm with a number of different opportunities, and it gives the firm to collect feedback from its customers regarding the different options it has and the firm then chooses the best option available which bring the most success to the firm. The most rational problem with product innovation is that firms are not ready to take risks. This interrupts the innovation process and often creates panic in firms. The manager has the most important responsibility here, he needs to keep his workers motivated and bring a change in their attitudes. They need to be more open to risks and coming up with new ideas. He needs to work very hard on keeping the departments culture very positive. In my opinion, the research I have carried from Product Development Institute Inc, 2014, Bulletin Board 2012, GreenBook 2011 and Jollywallet 2014 and the journal I have reviewed both show similar results about approaches that be used to be make a business successful. Both emphasize on splitting the product innovation process and taking risks.We can see this as it was stated by the Bulletin Board 2012 that the advantage of using a stage-gate process the firm can identify all the risks and threats that are associated with the production process. 80 percent of all the North American businesses use this process which further shows the importance of the stage-gate process. In the journal and my research from Jollywallet both show that taking risks is essential for every business have product innovation and be successful.The writers of the journal very clearly tell how the businesses can be successful by implementing such simple processes like stage-gate, the use of the innovation funnel and managing their risks in such a way that they do not pose a threat to the product innovation process.This shows how important both the things are for a firm when carrying out the process of product innovation. References Bulletin Board, 9 March 2012 Bulletin Board of Lessons Learned , http://www.eereblogs.energy.gov/lessonslearned/post/2012/03/09/Benefits-of-the-Stage-Gate-Process-the-Case-of-a-Biofuels-Project.aspx, 21 May 2014 Fred Crawford, 17 March 2014 jollywallet, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-17/managing-risk-without-stifling-innovation, 21 May 2014 Hooman Attar, Seyed Mohammad Reza Shahabi, SepidehNasiri. 2012. Introduction - Conclusion. The Rational View of Product Innovation: A Critical Investigation. 5, 2-16 Product Development Institute Inc, 2014 Product Development Institute Inc, http://www.prod-dev.com/stage-gate.php, 21 May 2014 Tamara Barber`, 4 June 2011 GreenBook, http://www.greenbookblog.org/2011/06/04/the-innovation-funnel-bringing-ideas-to-life/, 21 May 2014 Read More