Innovation Processes

There are four different processes to innovation:

1.  Identify opportunities for new products and services
Antcipate future needs for customers and identify the needs for new products and services.
 
2.  Manage the research and development portfolio
Once ideas for new products and services have been, decisions need to made on which ones to fund and which was to cut. The ones which are being funded need to be kept under review
in case of new opportunities and resource constraints and whether to continue supporting the project at the current level of resources e.g. money, capital equipment, and people or to reduce resource commitments, or  to stop the project because of limited progress made to date or more attractive opportunities which may have recently been identified.
 
3.  Design and develop the new products and services
A successful design and development process finishes as a product which has the desired functionality, is attractive to the targeted market, and can be produced with consistent quality and at a cost allows satisfactory profit margins to be earned. The development process also has to meet its own targets for completion time and development cost.
This process follows these stages:
Concept development
Product Planning and
Detailed product and process engineering
 
4.  Bring the new products and services to market
 In this stage the product team releases the the product for initial ramp-up into commercial production and starts pilot production to finalize the specifications for the production process and tests whether the new or modified manufacturing processes can produce the finished product at commercial level of production.
They then start a commercial production at low levels and the marketing ans sales teams start selling to customers. When customer orders start rising the product production increases and when the company achieves targeted levels of sales and production, at specified levels of product functionality, quality, and cost, the development project concludes.

Apple vs Samsung

Well it seems the US jury verdict is in and Samsung are to pay Apple $1 billion in damages for patent infringement.



"After just three days of deliberations on the complex and technical case, the jury has ruled that Samsung violated six of Apple's patents, including utility and design patents. Samsung has been ordered to pay Apple $1.05 billion in damages, which is about half of what Apple had originally asked for in its lawsuit against Samsung. The jury found that Apple had not infringed on any of Samsung's patents and was not fined a penny." (Johnson, 2012)

Samsung responded by stating

"Today's verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer. It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices. This is not the final word in this case or in battles being waged in courts and tribunals around the world, some of which have already rejected many of Apple's claims."
But in Seoul, South Korea, on Friday, the court ruled that even though Samsung didn't copy Apple's iPhone design, both of the companies were guilty of patent infringement against one another and as a result of this verdict, the court is imposing a partial sales ban, in the country, on both  Samsung and Apple, which will apply mostly to the older products and not necessarily to new devices. It yet to be seen if they will do the same in the US.

Bibliography
Johnson, B.A(August 25th, 2012).Apple vs. Samsung Lawsuit Verdict is in; Jury Orders Samsung to Pay $1 Billion in Damages, Patent Infringement.  Retrieved August 26th, 2012 from http://www.latinospost.com/articles/3290/20120825/samsung-apple-trial-verdict-is-in-jury-orders-samsung-to-pay-1-billion-in-damages.htm

BSA

BSA meaning the Balanced Scorecard Approach (not to be confused with Broadcasting Standard authority or Birmingham Small Armies)

The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system which is used in business, industry, government, and nonprofit organizations worldwide to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals.
It was brought in by Drs. Robert Kaplan, from the Harvard Business School, and David Norton as a performance measurement framework which added strategic, non-financial, performance measures to the traditional financial metrics, to give managers and executives a more 'balanced' view of an organizations performance.


A graph showing the BSA's startegic planning and management system.

Business Drivers

What are business drivers?
Business drivers are the main factors and resources which provide the essential marketing, sales, and operational functions of a business.



The best way to find out what the business drivers are for a business is to ask:

• What drives the sales figures?
• What drives the costs?
• What drives the cash flow?

An online survey conducted among a sample of technology decision makers selected from the Ziff Davis Enterprise Service Provider database concluded that the top 10 business drivers for 2008 were:

1. New Customers
2. Existing Customers
3. Sale of Solution
4. Incremental Services Revenue
5. Managed Services
6. Operational Cost Savings
7. Large Customers
8. Higher Per-Hour Services
9. Application Development
10. Software

 

Innovation

Do you think that innovation can only occur after development of a new technology, or can innovation be achieved with an existing technology?

Innovation can definately be achieved with an existing technology.
How did Dr Martin Cooper, of Motorola, invent the very first cell phone without first the invention of the telephone?


Dr Martin Cooper making the first US analoguemobile phone call.

In fact most of the new technology around today has been based on already existing technology.
a lot of innovation occurs because inventors are trying to make existing technology etc. better and more efficient.

Some examples:

• The toilet would not have come about if it were not for developments such as the running water in the home - indoor plumbing.
• If it wasn't for the wood burning oven and the invention of electricity, the electric oven, most of us have in our homes today, would not have been invented.
• If it wasn't for the first lawnmower, which was made of cast iron and featured a large rear roller with a cutting cylinder (reel) in the front, then the petrol ones we use today would not have come about.

These were just some examples but there are many more.
So repeat Innovation can definately be achieved with an existing technology.

Sparking the Fire of Innovation

Do small organisations offer more oportunity for inventiveness, in particular, through research and development?

Without first reading 'Sparking the fire of invention' my first thoughts, on the above question, were that the bigger the business, the better they are financially for reasearch and development and the more staff to come up with new developments. But it soon became apparent, while I was reading, that my thoughts were slightly wrong as I didn't realise that what was meant by a 'small company' was a company that was solely for coming up with inventions, not a company which had a portion of its employees, who were inventing.


After reading 'Sparking the fire of invention' I will like to state that I do not agree with the way big businesses diregarded the impotance of the invention stage of 'technological change'. The following statement from the reading says: 

"Companies adopted the view that invention by itself was only a tiny part of business success; for every $1 spent on basic research, the conventional wisdom went, $100 would be spent on development and $1,000 on commercialization."

If it was not for the invention there would be no innovation, where the invention is transformed into products and services, and then there would be no diffusion, where the products and services are maketed. The invention is the most important part of the process.
It is little wonder that smaller companies do very well at inventiveness when that is the way big companies think. That is where little companies spend their time and money, with researching and developing new ideas.

This following extract from the above reading is what holds back bigger companies"

"Invention is so steeped in the myth of accidental discovery that one might conclude it’s like playing the lottery."

Some inventions may come from accidental discovery but most come from lots of research and 'trial of error'.

I very much like the following, from the inventor Jay Walker.

"invention is about taking risks that will almost certainly fail in order to find the unlikely breakthrough."

Which is basically the theory the small businesses like Myhrvold's Invention Science,  and others referred to in the reading, go by.

So to answer the question which was asked at the start, do I agree that small organisations offer more oportunity for inventiveness, in particular, through research and development?
I believe they do but only because big companies do not value the inventiveness stage of technological change. If big companies were to change their way of thinking then maybe they would have a better chance against the little companies.


 

Man drives into harbour

Just had to share thisfollowing  article, which I came across today, as I think it is kind of funny, although it could have ended as a deadly mistake.

Man guided by GPS drives into US harbour.

The guy in this article had just relocated to Alaska and as he was unfamiliar with Alaska decided to put his hands in the trust of his GPS. When the GPS told him to turn a hard right turn which led him down a boat launching ramp!
Thoughts?
Why did he continue to drive when he could see that he was heading down a boat ramp?

As good and handy as GPS's are, anybody who has had any experience with them knows that you still have to use your own instincts and disregard what the GPS says every now and then.