Introducing the Corporate Innovation Process

The chapter of this book makes an emphasis in 3 terms, that according to it are the key of success for any company that reach the successful application of them. The first one is New Product Development: This basically refers to the development of a new product a good or service, from its earliest idea until it becomes a commercial product available for public use. The second term is Venture: This is a product, market or process development project that goes all the way from the initial idea to a commercial product, market or process. A venture refers to the development project than to the new product itself, this term is also more general, it can refer to market and process development as well as product development. The third term is Intrapreneur: it is involved is the venturing process, that is, in developing a new business inside a corporation from its initial idea until it becomes a viable business. After these words and their meanings according to what we want to reach we can say that Innovation means the development of something new from its earliest beginning to it ultimate accomplishment. Innovation will be used as the more inclusive term that includes Intrepreneurship, new product development and venturing. Innovation has become an important matter in the performance of a company. Today companies needs to innovate themselves, their process, and their products. Innovation is the base of worldwide competition between the companies. However the biggest challenge for organizations is to apply or intend to apply innovation. For this to become a reality the whole organization needs to be

Introducing the Corporate Innovation Process

included and participate in the process from employees, directors, process, products/services and the external factors such as suppliers and others. I define innovation as an organizations ability to adapt and evolve repeatedly and rapidly, to stay one step ahead of the competition. A culture of innovation, when done right, gives you a competitive edge because it makes you more nimble with an increased ability to sense and respond to change. We will define Corporate Culture as the set of shared behaviors, artifacts, values beliefs and assumptions that a corporate develops as it learns to cope with external and internal aspects of survival and success. A culture of innovation has less to do specifically with new products, new processes, or new ideas. These are valuable and necessary in order to create a culture of innovation. But a culture of innovation is more than new ideas. It needs to be repeatable, predictable, and sustainable. This only happens when you treat innovation like you treat all other capabilities in your business. Every culture has its own culture, organizational culture is similar to an individuals personality, is intangible, and however presents meaning, direction and the basis for action. A companys culture influences how employees and managers approach problems, serves customers, deal with suppliers, react to competitors, and otherwise conducts activities now and in the future. To create an Innovative culture in a firm the book establish 12 steps that companies must follow to reach this goal.

Introducing the Corporate Innovation Process

1. Far-Sighted High-Level Strategic and Cultural Leadership. 2. Emphasis on Innovation, Intrepreneurship and achievement. 3. Strong Costumer Focus. 4. Emphasis on Total Quality Management 5. Flexible and Adaptable Organizations 6. High Levels of Collaboration, Teamwork and Trust 7. Participative Management Style and Employee Empowerment 8. Emphasis on Human Resources 9. Continuous Learning, Change and Improvement 10. Effective Information, Communication and decision-Making Systems 11. Emphasis on Process Management 12. Emphasis on Corporate Venturing Process This point basically explain how important is for the companies that their leaders change their mentality and develop strategic plans to achieve the mission and cultural plans to achieve the vision of the organization. The decisions and actions that the leaders take make the difference for the performance of their subordinates. If the leaders assume the innovative position they take charge, they can make things happen and goals become reality. I remember I had one class maybe in 3rd semester; a case that caught my attention was the case of Bell Atlantic a communications company of 12,000 million dollars, this company operated in a monopolistic market, free of all competition. Answered to the costumers request according to companys schedule and without caring much for the quality of the service they gave. But with the pass of the years new

Introducing the Corporate Innovation Process

communications companies started to merge and a lot of clients left. In that moment Bell Atlantic understood that they had to change and innovate themselves; a few month later they were working with measurement cycles of response for the costumers in days instead of weeks or even months. The quality service increased a 100%. Today costumers are really specific about what they want and when they want it. We have seen in past semesters the importance of Empowerment and the difference can make involve all the employees in the corporate present and future bringing new ideas and better ways to do things. We need to understand that the base of every company are the employees, if we want to become competitive we need to understand the importance of the employees and how their mentality and thoughts can affect our performance. The key of success is the knowledge and their ability and not luck. If you recognize the rules and avoid mistakes you have all probabilities to succeed. In most companies the mistakes are made over and over again. To innovate and change the culture of your organization you must have first to recognize these common wrong doings and avoid them. The obvious way to fail in the Innovation is not redesign, instead you have to make changes and involve every single person that conform the organization. For the company to change first the board and directives need to make a big emphasis in the innovation, create a culture since the highest levels to the lowest.