Innovation and technology management - Essay Example

About four years ago I worked at a start-up that had an innovative technology that at the time was five to ten years ahead of its time. The innovation was incredible, but due to insufficient funds the company was never able to bring the product to market. Innovation has advantages and disadvantages which vary depending on the entity that is applying innovation. When an individual has innovative skills and abilities the person is able to visualize things others do not see. An innovator or inventor is a person that has the ability to perform research and who is committed to the innovative product or application.

The innovative mentality sometimes works against these individuals because they fail to analyze other business aspects that are just as important as the product itself such as human resources, marketing, accounting, and information systems. A flaw of thinking too much about innovation is that it limits a person’s perspective and does not allow an individual to perform an honest analysis of the innovation to identify its potential deficiencies. Innovators also at times are too secretive and do allow others to help them out in the process based on the erroneous assumption that the outside party is going to steal their idea.

A non-disclosure agreement signed between the innovator and the outside party in the presence of a lawyer is sufficient protection to discuss the innovation without getting into any technical details of how the innovation was created. The concept of innovation can provide great benefits for an established business. Innovation is not limited to creating new products. It can be applied in the corporate world to improve a firm’s operation by creating innovative business processes. For example Coca-Cola Company reduced the water usage in its plants by creating an innovative recycling process of the water