Creating Competitive Edge through Continuous Innovation

Author: Verena Veneeva

Organizations around the world have claimed that they are ‘innovative' businesses as they are creative (Papers4you.com, 2006). However to gain a competitive edge, it is imperative to realize that innovation always implies one step ahead of creativity where later is only an essential component of innovation. Creativity is merely an ability to combine ideas in a unique way or to associate ideas in uncommon manner , however innovation on the other hand is the ‘process' of taking a creative idea and turning it into a useful product or service ( Robbins & Coulter, 2002). Such process involves inputs like creative individuals, organization and groups that can carry transformation through creative process and situation to give creative products as outputs (Woodman et al, 1993). Furthermore, it is also important to realize that such process should be on continuous basis as true innovative marketing involves regular efforts to gain real improvements in all dimensions related to products and services (Kotler & Armstrong, 1999).

There can be numerous examples of companies that came up with new innovations and get a huge competitive edge and attracted large number of customers (Papers4you.com, 2006). For Instance, years ago, diabetic patients were deprived of tasting sugar in tea or coffee etc. Suddenly low calories sweetener products like ‘Canderal' came up with an innovative idea to give diabetic and fat conscious patients taste of sugar in various items without disturbing their sugar level. Such products captured market of diabetic patients all over the world. Example of Procter & Gamble's Liquid Tide is argued as one of the best cases of innovation in US market. Initial endeavors to compete years of Lever Bros market leading liquid detergent product ‘Wisk' turned out to be huge failure. However by adopting creative idea of adding 12 cleaning agents (that are double than normal) , a dirt trapping molecule in wash water and by giving same color to bottle that is trademark of Tide powdered detergent ( for maintaining brand awareness) and then transforming it into product ‘ Liquid Tide', P & G challenged many successful years of ‘Wisk' by capturing equal market share in just 18 months (Kotler & Armstrong, 1999).

Apart from getting edge, there are certain other benefits of innovation. It helps in creating flexible and more adaptive business processes with changing business environments, faster and accurate actions are possible as it requires real-time decision making and due to regular analyses and control, it allows companies to better anticipate disruptions in day-to-day business operations that helps in taking proactive and quick measures to improve results (IBM, 2006)

Hence it may be concluded that instead of relating innovation with creativity only, organizations can get competitive edge and success if they take innovation as a continuous process of product, services and operations with creativity as a key component.

References

IBM (2006), ‘Transforming businesses for innovation and improvement', New York: IBM Corporation

Kotler, P & Armstrong, G, (1999), ‘Principles of Marketing', Eight Edition, New Jersey: Prentice- Hall Inc

Papers For You (2006) " C/OM/33. Does innovation necessarily lead to commercial success? ", Available from http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/sprtopem3.htm [19/06/2006]

Papers For You (2006) " S/B/86. The changing role of innovation S/B/86. The changing role of innovation", Available from Papers4you.com [19/06/2006]

Robbins, S, P & Coulter, M, (2002), ‘Management', Sixth Edition, New Jersey: Prentice- Hall Inc

Woodman, R, W, Sawyer, J, E & Griffin, R, W, (1993), ‘Toward a Theory of Organizational Creativity', Academy of Management Review, April, 1993: 309

About the Author:

Copyright © 2006 Verena Veneeva. Professional Writer working for http://www.coursework4you.co.uk

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Innovation and Porter’s Five Forces Theory

Author: Olivia Hunt

Innovation is the process of making advances by inventing something new. It is the introduction of a new idea, method or device. In other words, innovation is a change that improves an already existing product or idea. Besides, successful usage of new ideas can be called an innovation. A company cannot exist and develop without innovation technologies in the modern competitive world. It must innovate in order to survive. Innovation is the major factor of company’s success and growth. Innovation ‘is generally understood as the introduction of a new thing or method. Innovation is the embodiment, combination, or synthesis of knowledge in original, relevant, valued new products, processes, or services’ (Luecke and Katz 2003, p. 2). Innovation includes technical innovation (products and services) and social innovation (organizations and markets). The most successful innovation strategies are made up of both elements.


Innovation goes along with creative though these are two different notions. Innovation means action on the basis of creative ideas. All innovation begins with creative ideas. We define innovation as the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization. In this view, creativity by individuals and teams is a starting point for innovation; the first is necessary but not sufficient condition for the second. Several years ago the innovation became an urgent necessity for companies. Since that time most companies focus their attention on this issue. In a modern world companies must continue the innovative process for keeping the brand popularity and meeting the customers’ needs via strategic planning and development of products.


A successful company should manage its brand effectiveness and popularity via developing the innovative strategies. Innovation connects the possibilities of a company with unmet customers’ needs. A company must strategically plan in what way to keep and enlarge brand effectiveness. Product and service innovation are used for achieving the result. For instance, the Apple Corporation has an effective brand popular as a customer-focused corporation. Every company provides some kind of services. These services must be improved via innovation strategies to make the client come back again and again. Innovation is the mainspring of the company’s growth and prosperity. It consists of product, service and brand innovation.

About the Author:

The article was produced by the writer of Essay-Paper.net. Olivia Hunt is a 4-years experienced freelance writer of Custom Essays Writing Service. Contact her to get information about film review writing and writing guide at our website.

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Analyze Innovative Capabilities Of Your Employees With Innovation Metrics

Author: Sam Miller

In today's world, it is very important to exploit the innovative capabilities of the employees so as to develop new business techniques in the face of modern technological advancements, empowerment of customers, new entrants in the market, shorter life cycle of the products, globalization of the market and geopolitical instability. The development of the innovative capabilities of individuals is the only to sustain an advantage over the competitors.





In every field, the leading company is the seen to be the innovator. Until now, innovation has been considered as some kind of black art. Managers of today's world still lack the metrics that are required to take informed decisions about the innovative programs. There are some metrics that have developed for the development of new product. But these metrics are very limited. Managers are not fully equipped with the right metrics to measure the innovativeness of a particular program.



There are quite a few reasons that support the importance of innovative metrics for the development of a company. Firstly, they help the mangers to come up with an informed decision that is based on objective data. This is valuable because certain projects might have be long term and might also have risks attached to it. Also metrics affect behavior of the employees by aligning goals and actions that are in the best interest of the organization or company.



Most of the companies that measure their innovativeness do so with the help of Research and Development or by product development metrics. These might be useful but are limited in their scope as they are not capable of measuring the overall effectiveness of the innovations on the company. While paying attention to technological development, often innovation related to business concept is neglected.



There should be a framework for the selection of metrics that can help the mangers to track the success rates of innovation in the companies. These metrics would be helpful for the senior executives to assess the innovativeness of the company which will combat the dangerous strategy decay that afflicts the business of a company. Strategies might decay due to various reasons and hence innovation is the key of success for any company.



Companies that are not able to innovate for themselves must learn to buy it. For example, if company's main product is out of demand then it can buy a lesser company whose products are still in demand. However, this innovation strategy is good only for a short term. In order to innovate things by themselves, the companies should have a balance between investment in the current business and innovation. The company should also assess the capability of the company to turn its resources of innovation into business opportunities. Also the leadership of the company has to be assesses in terms of its supportiveness towards any innovation.



Innovation metrics is important, because it is not really possible to manage something by measuring it. Innovation metrics is a tool to motivate the managers and leaders of the company to embrace innovation and give it priority. The goals of innovation need to be communicated and rewards for achieving milestones should be set. This helps in the acceleration of the pace of ideas that can be implemented. Innovation metrics can be applied in various fields in the company including process, planning and people.

About the Author:
If you are interested in innovation metrics, check this web-site to learn more about innovation scorecard.

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Knowledge Management : Innovation of Innovation

Knowledge innovation or “the creation, evolution, exchange and application of new ideas into marketable goods and services for the excellence of an enterprise, the vitality of a nation’s economy and the edvancement of society as-a-whole”.
The evolution is outlined according to the elements of analysis, the relationship with the customer, and the overall management style. First, the earlier years of the computer industry wew data-intensive; there was a focus on automation. Second, the primary industry has been product-oriented. The third, the focus changed in how organizations are managed.



The elements of analysis in the 1950’s until the 1970s was data, whereas in the next evolution between 1970’s and 1990’s were information and the final evolution is knowledge content. Amidon in her book “Innovation Strategy for the Knowledge Economy : The Ken Awakening” argued that “there has been a (re) birth of the principles and practices related to education, development, and the learning. With the advancement of technology and the increasing complexities of the marketplace, executives began to realize that learning no longer could be isolated to the classroom”.

Managers, businessman and entrepreuneur need to focus on knowledge as the evolution from data and information. This provides a way to describe the content that needs to be managed. At least there are five major forces influencing the worldwide marketplace that must be understood in order to capitalize on the business opportunities afforded by the global economi :
• Shift from information to knowledge
• Shift from bureaucracies to Networks
• Shift from Training/Development to Learning
• Shift from Local/National to Transnational
• Shift from Competitive to Collaborative Strategy

Shift from information to knowledge
In the information technology profession, there has been a natural evolution of computing. Data are considered as elements of analysis. Information is data with context. Knowledge is information with meaning. Wisdom is knowledge plus insight. The new source of wealth is knowledge, not labor, land, or financial capital. It is the intangible, intellectual assets that must be managed. This shift needs a new lens through which the world is viewed.

Shift from Bureaucracies to Networks
The traditional hierarchical designs that served the industrial era are not flexible enough to harness the full intellectual capability of an organization. Strategic Business Units have given way to the creation and effective utilization of Strategic Business Networks, whereas progressive organizations establish Strategic Business Systems with multiple networks, interdependent units and dual communications.
Another new lens from which the organization must be viewed is the shift from hierarchical authority to a system based on new ideas. The Strategic Business Network now includes partners, suppliers, and stakeholders, including customers and sometimes competitors.

Shift from Training/Development to Learning
Learning is considered as the integral process for progress. It is an investment rather than perceived expense to the organization. The knowledge that one creates and applies is more important than the knowledge one accumulates. New techniques, such as collaborative teams and action research, can be incorporated easily into the culture.

Shift from Local/National to Transnational
Enterprises can no longer rely on purely regional approaches to maintain their profitable growth. More and more, companies and industries of all types are needing to globalize in order to maximize their profits. Every national strategy must be created within an international context, thus transnational. During the post-war era, there is a need to create the equivalent for “the world trade of ideas”.

Shift from Competitive to Collaborative Strategy
With a collaborative approach, rather than competitive, symbiosis creates a larger pie to share or more pies to divide. Alliances of every dimensions are the natural order of the day in realization that go-it-alone strategies are almost suboptimal.

(Amidon, D. (1997). Innovation Strategy for the Knowledge Economy : The Ken Awakening, Butterworth-Heinemann.)

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Innovation in an Archipelago Emerging Economy

Indonesia, although considered as a developing economy, it is now an emerging economy. Although diversed and dispersed in nature, the information age has been a bless to the development of innovative and creative industries. Software developers, advertising companies, research and development institutions adds flavors to it's culture heritage and social nature of the people.

Under the current government administration under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, democracy, freedom of the press, Trade and Intellectual Property Rights acts as a catalisator. Indonesia is in the move to a system of effective and efficient innovation and creative community.

One innovative movement is the establishment of technopark in Sragen, Central, Java. The technopark consists of BLT (Balai Latihan Kerja = Work Training Center) in training grassroot community in enhancing their skills as well as giving them innovatif insight.

Yes, the world is on the move into a new form of economy, Indonesia with it's innovative and creative economy is on the run to be a global player in the economy. Indonesia not only tries to enhance it's knowledge and innovative capability in it's knowledge-based economy, but also working hard to link it's knowledge-based economy with it's resource based economy that has been the countries comparative advantage.

In this innovation community, let our hands shake, our hearts attached and our mind sinergize the emerging economy. As a knowledge worker, as a part of the global innovative economy, I am proud to be in this community.....Let the innovation begin.....
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