Introduction to

INNOVATION

By: Dr. Ritu Bhattacharyya

Innovation : The process of

translating an idea or invention
into a good or service that creates
value or for which customers will
pay is innovation
To be called an innovation, an
idea must be replicable at an
economical cost and must satisfy
a specific need.

Innovation

involves
deliberate
application
of
information,
imagination
and initiative in deriving
greater or different values
from resources, and includes
all processes by which new
ideas are generated and
converted
into
useful

In business, innovation often

results when ideas are applied
by the company in order to
further satisfy the needs and
expectations of the customers.
In a social context, innovation
helps create new methods for
alliance creation, joint venturing,
flexible work hours, and creation

What is INNOVATION

Levels of innovation

What do you think is the greatest

innovation of all time?
What do you consider to be the greatest innovation of
all time? This could be an innovation during your
lifetime, during the last century or in the distant past.
If youre struggling for an idea, take a look at the
categories below and consider what innovations might
fall under each. You may have ideas that are not in
these categories as well.

Medical science
Fashion
Transport
Communication
Computing
Household objects

Innovation is important as it is one of the

primary ways to differentiate your product
from the competition. New and innovative
products can increase the standard of living
and provide people with opportunities to
improve their lives. Breakthroughs in medicine
and technology have significantly improved
living standards around the world.

Importance of innovation
In the past, organisations have been
able to survive even with very limited
amounts
of
innovation.
Today
customers are used to products that
continually improve and make their
life easier. Innovation promotes the
need for constant change and
renewal, potentially impacting all
areas of a business.

Innovation management
Is the process of capturing and
managing organisational innovation.
Traditionally the territory of R&D teams,
today
many
companies
have
organisation-wide
innovation
management programs. This is due to
increased recognition that innovation is
essential for driving business growth
and
maintaining
competitive
advantage.

Requirements for managing innovation

Having an innovation framework can

be a key component to continuous
effective change that increases the
capability of the business to
generate customer value.
A critical part of this framework will be
the decision making process that is
used to funnel the potentially long
list of ideas down to the critical few
that will deserve investment.

Barriers to innovation
The most common barrier to innovation in
organisations is a leader or manager that is not open
to new ideas.
Managers are also guilty of shooting down ideas
before they are given a chance
Time and resources are also significant barriers to
innovation.
Innovation is also seen to be too expensive for small
businesses to get involved in.
Organisations with the inability to implement and
commercialise new ideas are the biggest barrier to
innovation.

Recognising innovation
need to assess where you currently
stand.
need to assess the potential within
your team for innovation
check if they have the resources
they need to create and develop new
ideas.
Identifying the people who are likely
to be creative

Sources of Innovation
The main source of business
innovation is directly from employees
Another important source of
innovation are customers
Your business competitors can also
be a source of innovation
the importance of research and
development departments cannot be
overlooked

Concept and Prototyping

As part of the innovation process, you will
come across many different ideas, some
of which will be better than others. In
terms of innovation in business, proof of
concept refers to demonstrating the
feasibility of an idea.
Idea screening will help you to eliminate
unsound concepts and ideas with limited
potential, allowing you to focus on ideas
with the greatest chance of success. a.

If an idea can be proven as a viable

concept, it moves to the prototyping
stage. This part of the innovation
process
involves
developing
and
building an actual working model or
representation of an idea. A prototype
can be a complete, full scale, functional
model or may simply demonstrate a
small component of an overall idea.
Prototypes may or may not be designed
to look like the final product, depending
on the scope of the design.

Developing a Product
The development stage is where many
great ideas lose momentum and fail to
make a significant impact on the success
of a business.
The development stage generally requires
the biggest investment of resources of all
the stages of innovation.
Many great ideas fail simply because of
their poor execution and delivery in the
market.

Execution &
Commercialisation
If a new product is truly innovative and has
been developed successfully, the execution
stage of the process should be the easiest.
many organisations fail to perform when it
comes to the commercialisation of new
products and services
marketing and sales team should be in the loop
all through the innovation process as they are
the people who know what the market needs
and are often the most honest about an ideas
true marketability

Evaluation & Improvement

This stage is critical in getting a
return on your investment in
innovation. Unfortunately,
particularly when a product is an
overnight success, businesses fail to
evaluate the long term viability of
their innovations.
The continuous improvement of
products is vital if you want
sustainable success.

10 Ways To Murder Creativity

Get employees to fill in time sheets.
Run daily checks on progress of everyone's work.
Ensure that highly qualified people do mundane work for
long periods.
Put barriers up between departments.
Don't speak personally to employees, except when
announcing increased targets, shortened deadlines and
tightened cost restraints.
Ask for a 200-page document to justify every new idea.
Call lots of meetings.
Place the biggest emphasis on the budget.
Buy lots of computers.
Always pretend to know more than everybody around you.

OBSTACLES TO INNOVATION
While it is overly simplistic to claim
that all organizations are dealing
with
the
same
obstacles
to
innovation, the fact is, there are
repeating themes and patterns that
can be noticed obstacles that will
need to be addressed if you expect
to establish a sustainable culture of
innovation are

 Lack of a shared vision, purpose

and/or strategy
Innovation not articulated as a
company-wide commitment
Lack of ownership by Senior Leaders
Constantly shifting priorities
Short-term thinking
Internal process focus rather than
external customer focus
Focus on successes of the past rather
than the challenges of the future

 Unwillingness to change in the absence of a

burning platform
Politics efforts to sustain the status quo to
support entrenched interests
Rewarding crisis management rather than crisis
prevention
Hierarchy over-management and review of
new ideas
Under-funding of new ideas in the name of
sustaining current efforts
Reluctance to kill initiatives that are not
succeeding, but have been funded and staffed
Fear that criticizing current practices and
commitments is a high-risk activity

 Workforce workloads (i.e. too much to do,

not enough time)
Risk aversion (i.e. punishment for
"failure")
Micromanagement
Inelegant systems and processes
Addiction to left-brained, analytical
thinking ("data is God")
Absence of user-friendly idea
management processes
Unwillingness to acknowledge and learn
from past "failures

 Inadequate understanding of
customers
Innovation not part of the
performance review process
Lack of skillful brainstorm facilitation
Lack of "spec time" to develop new
ideas and opportunities
Inadequate "innovation coaching"
No creative thinking training
No reward and recognition programs