INNOVATIVE MANAGEMENT

INNOVATIVEMANAGEMENT
is the discipline of managing processes in innovation. It can be used to develop both product and organizational innovation.Innovation management includes a set of tools that allow managers and engineers to cooperate with a common understanding of goals and processes. The focus of innovation management is to allow the organization to respond to an external or internal opportunity, and use its creative efforts to introduce new ideas, processes or products Importantly, innovation management is not relegated to R&D; it involves workers at every level in contributing creatively to a company's development, manufacturing, and marketing. By utilizing appropriate innovation management tools, management can trigger and deploy the creative juices of the whole work force towards the continuous development of a company. The process can be viewed as an evolutionary integration of organization, technology and market by iterating series of activities: search, select, implement and capture. Innovation processes can either be pushed or pulled through development. A pushed process is based on existing or newly invented technology, that the organization has access to, and tries to find profitable applications to use this technology. A pulled process tries to find areas where customers needs are not met, and then focus development efforts to find solutions to those needs. To succeed with either method, an understanding of both the market and the technical problems are needed. By creating multi-functional development teams, containing engineers and marketers, both dimensions can be solved. The lifetime (or product lifecycle) of new products is steadily getting shorter; increased competition therefore forces companies reduce the time to market. Innovation managers must therefore decrease development time, without sacrificing quality or meeting the needs of the market.

Common tools include brainstorming, virtual prototyping, product lifecycle management, idea management, TRIZ, Phasegate model, project management, product line planning and portfolio management

THE 7 PHASES OF INNOVATIVE MANAGEMENT

The innovation management process has become an important part of the operations of many businesses, as the recognition of the importance of initiatives towards innovation has become much more common. That said, while many companies do attempt to have a solid approach to creativity and innovation, too few actually focus on it as a single function. Instead, they seem to hold many separate activities in isolation, such as brainstorming sessions, pilot projects and campaigns, and vague communication with the market, and simply keep fingers crossed that it will come together in the end. While this has worked for some in the past, it is far from the ideal way of performing this important task. Instead, the best way to accomplish this is to have a set innovation activities which integrates the activity into the regular cycle of your business. The list below shows the phases in innovation management process, which will help your organization to put it all together as one process. 1) Setting the goals for the process Innovation always begins with a goal in mind. It is many times based on finding the solution to a problem. Once you have this goal, it should be discussed among everyone in the problem solving team. This team may consist of you and another person, a group of people, or may even be all of yourorganizations employees. It may involve others such as your customers (who can provide suggestions and feedback based on their own experience with your product or service) or other stakeholders in the business. When you establish the team for this process, make sure that you have someone representing all the parts of the process from start to the end. 2) Cooperation The innovation team should work together so that instead of trying to come up with an idea separately, they can bounce ideas off one another and create a collaborative solution. This can include the use of online tools, attendance of events such as trade shows that can be inspiring and informative, or simply consist of brainstorming sessions. You might consider having a trained business coach facilitating the discussions. There are many online tools available for real-time document sharing that might help teams that are geographically separated to still have intense cooperation. 3) Combination of ideas Once the ideas are in, choose the best ones and then consider whether they can be combined to create an even greater idea. Often, strong ideas will be complementary to one another and will join well to create an even better result. As you know, the whole result can be bigger than its individual parts. And for this combination to work well, you need representatives of all parties involved in the process, because they for sure have ideas that people from other departments could not come up with. Business coaches may be useful here for making sure that all the angles of innovative aspect are covered. 4) Evaluation of innovation

This is an important and yet all too frequently overlooked aspect of the innovation management process. When the best ideas have been combined, fine-tuned, and polished, it is time to subject them to evaluation based on peer reviews. This helps to ensure that any ideas that have a promising veneer but that are poorly thought out will be identified before resources, funding and time have been poured into them. It also helps to select the ideas with the greatest potential from among several that appear equally capable of being successful. It is cheap to change your innovation at this stage compared to later stages. Each step you take forward will cost you more

5) Testing the ideas Once the ideas with the greatest potential have been identified, they can be tested so that they can be better developed. One of the most common means of testing a product or service idea is to create a prototype or test group. This allows the team, as well as customers and investors to have a better look at how the product will function and what changes can be made to it so that it will be even further improved. Make sure that the product or service not only raises interest but is able to generate orders also. If people say that they are interested in it, then ask them if they give you the order right away. 6) Execution of innovation implementation The ideas that survive the testing process can be further developed and altered until they are ready to be executed as a part of the business offerings. The execution of implementation is a step that is unique to your business and, unless your new product causes you to have to drastically alter the typical way that your go-to-market strategy functions, then this part of the innovation management process should be relatively commonplace in your organization. It should be easier for you to move from testing to execution if you were able to generate orders already in testing phase. 7) Assessment of innovation life-cycle After the execution of an idea, its implementation needs to be carefully monitored and assessed in terms of a number of milestones that should be set. Should a milestone not be reached, then changes will need to be made or the idea will need to be shut down. Remember to keep always customer in your mind also in execution phase and design your measuring systems so that they measure added value for the customer (you get what you measure and customers weight you based on that!).

MEASURING INNOVATIVE MANAGEMENT

There are two phases the first phase involves the design of the innovation and the second involves its implementation. The measure of innovation at the organizational level relates to individuals, team-level assessments, and private companies from the smallest to the largest. Measure of innovation for organizations can be conducted using surveys to establish internal benchmarking. There is now an emerging body of work around the Management Innovation Index as an effective analytic that uses regression analysis enabling the measurement of organizational innovation that focuses on the four organizational pillars of innovation - culture and environment, strategy, innovation

practice and the personal traits, beliefs and attitudes of managers to creativity and innovation. In addition, the Management Innovation Index maps the flow of creative inputs through the organization's operating system that produces the organization's innovation, i.e. the creative outputs.

MANAGE COMPLEX INNOVATION

To manage complex innovation, ask the right questions Innovation is the change that outperforms the previous practice. To lead or sustain with innovations, managers need to concentrate heavily on the innovation network, which requires deep understanding of the complexity of innovation. Collaboration is an important source of innovation. Innovations are increasingly brought to the market by networks of firms, selected according to their comparative advantages, and operating in a coordinated manner. When a technology goes through a major transformation phase and yields a successful innovation then it becomes a great learning experience, not only for the parent industry but for other industries as well. Big innovations are generally the outcome of intra- and interdisciplinary networking among technological sectors along with combination of implicit and explicit knowledge. Networking is required but network integration (networking of networks) is the key to success for complex innovation in todays era where diverse technologies are available at its best. Social economic zones, technology corridors, free trade agreements and technology clusters are some of the ways to encourage organizational networking and cross-functional innovations. To win with innovation in a flat world we definitely need complex networking and crowd-sourcing

UNIVERSITIES OFFERING INNOVATION AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins has a Masters in Innovation Management. University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Wels Campus offers Masters as well as Bachelors Programme in Innovation and Product Management.This is one of the few courses offered in English language in Austria. Another course which is called MSc. in Global Innovation Management (GIM) is a unique 2-year programme offered jointly by the University of Strathclyde (Scotland), Aalborg University (Denmark), Hamburg University of Technology (Germany) and, Swinburne University of Technology (Australia) which enables graduates of first degrees in engineering, science and technology to successfully manage the innovation process across international boundaries. North Carolina State University offers a one year Master's of Global Innovation Management degree, a joint program with IAE Graduate School of Management in France. The curriculum is designed to give engineering, science and other technology-oriented students a strong exposure to core business management skills while providing in-depth exposure to a host of global innovation management issues. It was designed specifically for students who are looking to create a personal competitive advantage for todays global job market.

4 KEY ISSUES ON INNOVATIVE MANAGEMENT

Business is moving at a dizzying pace and being able to innovate effectively and quickly is a high priority for all companies. But what are the key innovation management issues that are facing all of the businesses at the moment? There are four key issues regarding innovation which include: specialization of innovation system, business model innovation, co-creation through social and mobile, and building an innovative culture. Understanding these issues will help to increase your organization's ability to innovate and stay competitive in the growing global economy.

1) Specialization of Innovation System

An innovation system is not standard for all companies. Any business that implements a system has to take the time to create its own unique process. The key components remain the same and include: idea creation, idea capture mechanism, and idea development, viability testing, and then investing in the winners while killing the losers. But how your organization actually implements all of these components is highly specialized based on resources that can be dedicated to the process.

2) Business Model Innovation

The standard and established business models are not holding true and like everything else they must adapt or they will suffer. Using innovative problem solving, your organization can increase what is working about your current business model, while discarding or reshaping the components that aren't performing. Creating a process that will consistently analyse and then innovate on the problem areas of the business model will help to keep the company using a profitable business model. Implementing different business models in parallel to expand business will help to identify and capitalize on the potential business opportunities that are slightly outside of the current scope.

3) Co-creation through Social and Mobile

Leveraging technology to not only used to interact with customers but also co-creating business products and processes will help to customize your business to match the needs of your customers. Innovating using technology and the data that you gain from the social and mobile interactions will allow the organization to get very specific and increase value, customer service and brand image at a much more rapid pace than ever before. Customers will tell you what to innovate and freely give up ideas if you just take the time to listen to their needs.

4) Building an Innovative Culture

Creating a culture where customers and employees are encouraged to discuss and experiment will improve the innovation capability in your organization. The best ideas aren't usually thought of right off the bat and it takes time and consistent tinkering to round out an idea into a gem. Using all of the resources optimally requires the company to build an innovative culture with open communication and experimentation. The better that an organization can create an effective innovation system, the better those additional resources will be available in order to test more ideas and further the innovation. Supporting the innovation culture within

your organization will take time and resources but will probably be the best investment that you can make. Consistent innovation is a required aspect of all businesses that expect to become and maintain market leader status. The better that you can create an innovation system that is specialized to your organization the more benefit you can get from your innovation. Business models have to be adapted and innovated on as often as possible to stay relevant and co-creating with social or mobile media will help you to stay a step ahead. Investing in creating an innovative culture for your organization will tie all of your effects together and ensure that the innovation continues for years to come.

What are the key innovations issues facing the business community right now?
Differentiated and integrative innovation concepts
Sustainable innovation cannot be achieved by one-size-fits-all and one-sided approaches. It requires a common understanding of what innovation is, classifying concepts in order to assure individual assessments as well as differentiated approaches for firms to strengthen their innovation capabilities and performance. Further, innovation is about balancing complementary, and often opposing, variables. Therefore, integrative frameworks may help to gain a more holistic perspective and direction of impact. Examples:

The Innovation Matrix is supposed to help assigning firms to one of nine types of innovative organizations. Depending on the characterization, a tailored approach can be developed in order to define where innovation should sit in the business model and how to drive growth.

The Three Horizons Model integrates a short, middle and long term view of innovation, often being in tension to each other. It enables generating a balanced innovation portfolio, consisting of activities with different time horizons. This model can be of great benefit when it comes to mixing incremental and radical innovation activities with regard to risk and strategic alignment.

As outlined previously, firms need to ensure a balance of exploiting existing businesses with exploring new opportunities, i.e. they need to become ambidextrous in order to thrive sustainably. As each direction of impact requires dedicated culture, metrics, leadership, mindset and organizational setup, this is another tension to be managed. An integrative framework (below) can be useful to determine a firms inclination and how to move towards a balanced innovation capability. Its important to note particularly for leaders: Exploration and exploitation are different, but equally important!

Reinvention and business model innovation

As the life times of business models steadily decrease and more radical innovation activities are about to enter the pipelines of most firms, the business model is the new unit of design. Indeed, research has confirmed that business model innovators outperform traditional innovators over time. One key issue here is to establish systematic approaches to business model innovation. While most companies have proven processes for product innovation in place, only few follow process models for innovating business models. Steve Blank has recently pointed out that generation of novel and reinvention of existing business models is imperative for corporations to succeed in the time to come. Some of his points are:

For companies to survive in the 21st century they need to continually create a new set of businesses, by inventing new business models. Most of these new businesses need to be created outside of the existing business units. The exact form of the new business models is not known at the beginning. It only emerges after an intense business model design and search activity based on the customer development process.

Unlike execution of existing business models, the invention and validation of new business models is based on a scientific and emergent approach: defining and testing hypotheses through rapid iterative experimentation. This is what the Lean Startup approach is about. It also implies designing and testing solutions on a minimum viable basis to gain a high iteration and learning frequency through customer feedback. To develop the ever more important (re-) invention and search capabilities into new fields, existing companies are challenged to consider to implement the lean startup concept. Or as Eric Ries puts it: Entrepreneurship is the new corporate function.

Another key issue for existing, in particular larger companies, will to build a structure, capable of successfully combining search (= generation and validation of new business models) and execution (= scaling and improvement of existing business models). Co-creation through open and social approaches Facing growing complexity, organizations are finding it increasingly impossible to be successful when entirely operating on their own. To move innovation forward more effectively and efficiently, they aim at building appropriate networks and partnerships. Findings of a recent IBM study confirm outperformers to be more inclined to innovate with external partners including customers. It suggests a clear tendency to leverage openness, connectedness and co-creation. Combining internal and external capabilities is becoming crucial for organizations to survive and thrive. Interorganizational partnerships and distributed value networks can be formed to pursue open business models and complementary capabilities. One interesting example is the intensified partnering between startups and larger firms to achieve sustainable innovation by combining their natural strengths. There is one simple reason behind: customer value and continuous disruption dont care about silos and boundaries.

Building a culture of experimentation

One of the best tools to use to improve innovation capability is experimentation. We often think that great businesses are built on great ideas. But the fact of the matter is that great businesses are usually built by tinkering until their great idea emerges this is the story told in Little Bets by Peter Sims.

Experimentation is an organisational skill that underlies all of the other issues that we have raised here. While there is no one-size-fits all innovation tool, experimenting is pretty close to being a one-size-fits all innovation skill. It is an approach that works best when it is used to test hypotheses - so that it enables structured learning. Experiments and hypothesis testing are an essential part of business model innovation. If we are trying to embed lean start-up principles into larger organisations, this is a capability that must be there. Experimenting is also central to co-creation and other social approaches. Start-ups and smaller organisations often experiment naturally. The issue that we would like to raise is that this skill must also be nurtured in larger organisations as well. If youre a manager, this means building experimenting into your organisational structure and routines. If you are reporting to someone, it means figuring out how much you can get away with, and using that scope of action to support experiments.

Other people may well come up with other innovation issues that are important, but these are the ones that seem most interesting to us right now. Now we just need to start making progress on them! Therefore, well try to elaborate on these issues in the time to come, in order to provide further ideas to help make innovation more successful.

MY REFLECTION
Innovative Management is the discipline of managing processes in innovation. So, for me the main key to success of every business enterprises and to persuade lots of customers and retain their loyalty is they must know how they can manage their products and services by way of innovation. Innovation is the uses of new knowledge to transform and organizational Today, processes company or is create facing commercially-variable evolve or known. To achieve the best innovative management in a certain organization, Leadership is mostly important because they act as the role model so they must plan & decide efficiently. Creating a culture where customers and employees are encouraged to discuss and experiment will improve the innovation capability in your organization. The best ideas aren't usually thought of right off the bat and it takes time and consistent tinkering to round out an idea into a gem. products services.

globalization so they must be competitive so that their products & services will

Using all of the resources optimally requires the company to build an innovative culture with open communication and experimentation. The better that an organization can create an effective innovation system, the better those additional resources will be available in order to test more ideas and further the innovation. Supporting the innovation culture within your organization will take time and resources but will probably be the best investment that you can make. Any business that implements a system has to take the time to create its own unique process. The key components remain the same and include: idea creation, idea capture mechanism, and idea development, viability testing, and then investing in the winners while killing the losers. But how your organization actually implements all of these components is highly specialized based on resources that can be dedicated to the process. In conclusion, proper innovative management must achieved to be successful in the industry.