Innovation

BY:- SANJITA TANDON

What is innovation?

Innovation is the process and outcome of creating something new, which is also of value. Innovation involves the whole process from opportunity identification, ideation or invention to development, prototyping, production marketing and sales, while entrepreneurship only needs to involve commercialization (Schumpeter).

What is innovation
Innovation is about creating value and increasing efficiency, and therefore growing your business. "Without innovation, new products, new services, and new ways of doing business would never emerge, and most organizations would be forever stuck doing the same old things the same old way.

Thomas Edison

I have not failed, Ive just found 10,000 ways that wont work.
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Distinguishing between creativity and innovation

Creativity is typically used to refer to the act of producing new ideas, approaches or actions. Innovation is the process of both generating and applying such creative ideas in some specific context.

Distinguishing between creativity and innovation

In the context of an organization, therefore, the term

innovation is often used to refer to the entire process

by which an organization generates creative new ideas and converts them into novel, useful and viable commercial products, services, and business practices.

While

the

term

creativity is reserved to apply

specifically to the generation of novel ideas by

individuals or groups, as a necessary step within the innovation process.

Distinguishing between creativity and innovation

innovation "begins with creative ideas, "...creativity by individuals and teams is a starting point for innovation; the first is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the second.

Innovation within the organization depends upon:

Organizational Motivation the basic orientation of the organization toward innovation; shared vision; providing rewards and recognition; lack of internal politics, and lack

of overemphasis on the status quo.

Resources everything the organization has available to aid in the area targeted for innovation, including time, funding, information and materials.

Cont..

Management Practices allowing freedom and autonomy in the practice of work; providing challenge; specifying clear strategic goals and

forming work teams comprised of individuals

with diverse skills and perspectives.

The Innovation Process Cycle

1) The Challenge The cycle starts with a problem or goal which needs to be formulated into an innovation challenge. Once this is done, the challenge is presented to the problem solving group. The group problem solving group may be a team, all employees in the firm, the public or any other group of people. 2) Collaboration In order to maximize the creative potential of the problem solving group, the idea generation activity should be collaborative in nature. This can be accomplished in many ways. Idea management and innovation process management software often provides on-line collaboration tools, while facilitators of brainstorming and other ideation events should promote collaborative idea development.

3) Scientific Peer Review Evaluation Here is where a lot of innovation initiatives break down: choosing the best ideas. The scientific approach of peer review by expert, is ideally suited for identifying the most promising ideas in a cycle. If an idea achieves a sufficiently high ranking, either as is or through additional modification, it should be developed further.
4) Testing and Development Ideas identified as being potential innovations are now ready to be tested and developed. Here is where typical business tools come in useful. Prototypes are an excellent means for testing ideas. Not only do they allow you, your colleagues, customers and others to see how an idea would actually look in implementation, but building and playing with a prototype is a good method of further improving upon the core idea. Prototypes are, of course, ideally suited towards material ideas such as new products. But more abstract ideas, such as new services, process improvements and other concepts can often be prototyped through role-play, building structural models and making diagrams.

5) Implementation Ideas that make it through testing and development are ready to be implemented.
6) Review Once ideas have been implemented, they need to be reviewed, it needs to be modified or killed. Moreover, even the most spectacularly effective and profitable breakthrough innovations need to be improved on a regular basis. 7) New Needs and Inspiration Hence, reviewing the implementation of new ideas should indicate new needs which can be transformed into challenges which, in turn, start a new innovation process cycle.

INNOVATION AS COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Business organizations are constantly faced with the challenge of gaining competitive advantage over competitors. Developing that special edge may mean survival for some or a way to stay on top of competition for others. A critical ingredient for staying on top is innovation. To be innovative is seeing things from new angles, having broad perspectives, taking risks and being flexible. Promoting innovation in the workplace entails encouraging employees to become idea champions. According to Edralin, large companies see training and development as a vital strategy in human resource management because this stimulates innovation among employees. Training and development do not just improve job performance but also develop creativity and problem-solving skills. They also contribute to employee flexibility, especially in adapting to change.

Training and development create a company environment that will change and build employees commitment as well as sense of ownership. It can also achieve a balance between the firms current performance and necessary innovation.

There must be genuine commitment and strong desire among company executives to use this strategy. Also, leaders must have positive attitudes and demonstrate supportive behaviors to encourage employees participation in the training programs. An example is by rewarding or publicly recognizing effective innovations developed by employees from applying their learning from employee development initiatives. To pursue innovation through learning, manufacturing and non-manufacturing companies use different training methods: presentation methods such as the use of lecture and audio-visual techniques; hands-on methods such as on-thejob training and behavioral modeling; and group-building methods such as team training and adventure learning. A combination of these different methods is sometimes used to enhance the creative, problem-solving skills of employees. To gain competitive advantage through training and development programs require the organization to apportion adequate resources in terms of budget, time, and expertise for training. Experts from both internal and external sources may be tapped. Use of new learning technologies such as CD-ROM, Internet and company intranet/portal in training delivery, storage and sharing of knowledge may also be maximized. Innovation may be a challenge for management; but it is the only route to sustained success. If one wants to fuel innovation among ones employees, it would definitely not hurt to invest in training and development.

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