Essay: Process of turning opportunity

DEFINITION

Innovation in Latin means something new.

“It is a process of turning opportunity into new ideas and of putting these ideas into widely used practices. It is a specific tool of enterperuninar the means by which they exploit change or an opportunity for a different business or service.”

It can also be defined as

“ The generation and implementation of ideas which add-value. Innovations are ways of improving an organizations performance or reducing the cost at which a given level of performance is achieved. “

“ The Ability to Deliver New Value to a Customer.”

“ Innovation is a process, involving multiple activities, performed by multiple actors from one or several organizations, during which new combinations of means and/or ends, which are new for a creating and/or adopting unit, are developed and/or produced and/or implemented and/or transferred to old and/or new market-partners.”

Innovation is a continuous variable.

CHARACTERISTICS OF INNOVATION

• Innovation is the energy source, the driving force for entrepreneurs.
• It does not only apply to product but equally applies to services and system.
• Very few innovations in themselves constitute major changes.
• Innovation is change for the better.
• It flourishes in democratic and centralized environment.
• An innovation should give better results and involve less risk.
• Innovation is one of the key ways by which a business seeks to differentiate its products or sevices from those of its competitors.
• Innovation should span all the activities necessary to produce profitable new or improved products, processes, services or ways of doing business.
• Innovation can arise in many ways…. from technology, development, design, marketing, sales, training, management information systems, business processes.
• It should be Subjective and Circumstantial.
• Innovation is not just Research and Development.
• Novelty is not a necessary nor sufficient condition.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INVENTION AND INNOVATION

There’s actually a big difference between a new idea, a new invention and an innovation. A new idea is just that – a thought about something new or unique. If you take that idea and make it real, then you have an Invention: a whirring, buzzing thing that the world has never seen before. Now, if you take that invention, and let it loose in the world, and it actually changes the way people live, that’s what we call an Innovation – an invention that has a socioeconomic effect.

Thus according to Oxford dictionary "Invention" is defined as "the action of inventing something, e.g. a machine or a system. The word "Innovation" is defined as "the process to make changes; to introduce new ideas, methods, etc."

The definition of innovation does not narrow the scale or scope of the solution, although in most cases the greater its potential impact, the higher its potential value. It is also worth noting that this definition intentionally does not limit the type of innovation. In fact, it is important to consider four major types of innovation—offer (product/service), process, structural (organizational), and strategic—and each of these along the innovation lifecycle curve, spanning from the early idea generation stage through its diffusion and eventual end or eclipse:

• Idea Generation – The earliest stage of idea generation and creation. Includes everything from early scanning, to rigorous gap analysis, to random sparks of insight.
• Development – This stage focuses on development, and includes prototyping, experimentation, beta-testing, and other activities moving an idea closer to production and scaled-up operation.
• Adopt & Diffuse – Most of the activities in this stage deal with implementation, whether in the form of product sales and service, process execution, or strategic follow-through.
• End – The decline (intentional or otherwise) of the unique value of an innovation, where the premium rents to the innovator have all but disappeared.

PRINCIPLES FOR SUCCESFUL INNOVATION

1. Identify opportunity. Purposeful, systematic innovation begins with the analysis of the opportunities. It begins with thinking through the sources of innovation. In different areas different sources will have different importance at different times. Demographic for instance may be of very little concern to innovators in fundamental industrial processes to someone looking for the missing link in a process such as papermaking where there is clear in congruity between economic realities. New knowledge by the same token may be very little relevance to someone innovating a new social instrument to satisfy a need created b changing demographics. But all the source of innovation opportunity should be systematic analyzed and systematically studied. It is not enough to be alerted to them. The search has to be organized, and must be done on a regular systematic basis.
2. An innovation to be effective has to be simple and should be focused. It should do only one thing otherwise it confuses. If it is not simple it won’t work. Everything new runs into trouble, if complicated it cannot be repaired or fixed. All effective innovations are always simple. Even innovation that creates new uses and new markets should be directed towards a specific, clear, designed application. It should be focused on a specific need that it satisfies on a specific end results that it produces.
3. Effective innovation starts small. They are not grandiose. They try to do one specific thing. Grandiose ideas, plan that aim at revolutionizing an industry are unlikely to work. Innovation had better be capable of being started small, requiring at first little money, few people, and only a small and limited market. Otherwise there is not enough time to make adjustments and changes that are almost always needed for an innovation to successes. Initially innovations are rarely more than almost right. the necessary changes can be made only if the scale is small and the requirement for people and money fairly modest.
4. A successful innovation aims at leadership. It does not aim necessarily at becoming eventually a big business. In fact no one can fore tell weather the given innovation will end up a big business or a modest achievement. But if an innovation does not aim at leadership from the beginning it is unlikely to be innovation enough and therefore unlikely to be capable of establishing itself. All entrepreneurial strategies that are all strategies aimed at exploiting an innovation must achieve leadership within a given environment. Otherwise they will simply create opportunity for the competition.

STRATEGIES OF INNOVATION

1.SWOT analysis.

The rationalist approach reflected in SWOT analysis (strength, weaknesses, opportunity, and threat) i.e.

• Monitor treads in competitive environment.
• Prepare for a changing future
• Make sure there is enough attention paid to the long term even though there are pressing day-to-day activities.
• Ensure coherence of objectives throughout the organization.

2.Incrementalist approach

Recognize that uncertainty is too high to do anything other than-

• Make deliberate steps towards an objective.
• Measure an evaluate effects of the steps taken.
• Adjust objectives and decide on the next steps.

INNOVATION AT HEWLETT-PACKARD

Invention — which is at the heart and soul of what HP has been about and must continue to be about — invention depends fundamentally on creativity. And creativity, I believe, springs from a diverse group of people talking about the possibilities. And when I say diverse I mean people who look different, people who think differently, people who have different backgrounds, people who have different skills, people who have different styles. I believe diversity is critical to creativity. And I believe creativity is at the foundation of invention. And so we must include everyone. It is at the heart of our success going forward.

HP’s philosophy for fostering an environment for creativity and innovation:

Rules of the garage:
– Believe you can change the world.
– Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever.
– Know when to work alone and when to work together.
– Share — tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.
– No politics. No bureaucracy. (These are ridiculous
in a garage.)
-The customer defines a job well done.
– Radical ideas are not bad ideas.
– Invent different ways of working.
– Make a contribution every day. If it doesn’t
contribute, it doesn’t leave the garage.
– Believe that together we can do anything.
Invent.