M/508/0494 (RQF) Unit 8-Innovation and Commercialisation

TASK1

P1. Importance of innovation and comparison with invention

Innovation means change, new, alternate or variation in the existing pattern. Innovation is done with an aim to improve the existing product. It facilitates more and better ways to perform work and task. It creates ease in working. In the organisation it the process to introduce new product and better product to earn profit.  In electronic industry the product has gone with the various changes. For firm IEC electronics it is important to do continuous changes with the increasing demand of competitive and efficient equipment in medical, industries, aerospace, and defence sector. The demands for electronic equipment are increasing day by day with the introduction of new products and technologies. This technological demand has fostered the need for new and advanced electronic equipment in the market.

Given below the importance of innovation for IEC electronics:-

• To give new and advanced products to their clients and helps them to make better products.
• It is required to meet the demand for new products as the world is facing new challenges in the technology.
• It is helpful in serving and attracting new clients as the new and innovative products are in demand now a days.
• Innovation helps to become market leader in the industry with more efficient products.

The terms innovation and invention are different from each other. Given below the few points:-

P2. Organisational vision, leadership, culture and teamwork for giving shape to innovation and commercialisation

Vision: The vision of the IEC electronic to be customer centric manufacturing partner by minimizing supply chain risks for their clients. Vision statements are guideline for the organisation.  This vision gives direction to the overall efforts of the organisation.Customer centric approach is vision of company which would coordinate the overall process of the organisation to give satisfaction to customer. Customer needs efficient product which gives them best value for the money. These values can be delivered by innovation only. In delivering the product at right time and right place it is important to have proper supply management. The product with the delivery to the customer needs to match with the customer budget. With this customer centric approach it is always remembered by the management to keep the cost the product in control. It makes customer happy that they get the product in their budget.

Leadership:The leadership of IEC electronics are in the hand of most experienced people. They have rich knowledge of their domain. The leaders have in depth knowledge of market trend and future requirement. The leaders follow the leadership style which enhances the skills of the employee. Intrapreneurship becomes the policy of the organisation which fosters innovation. Innovation becomes the work style of the organisation. Innovation is not bounded to product only it reflects in process also. This leadership is useful to deliver the product to customer in more efficient manner. Sometimes it reduces the cost also and if it does not reduce the cost it increase the value to the customer.

Culture:  leadership style embedded with employee satisfaction creates organisation culture. When leaders belief that customer and innovation are key point of their services than this belief delivers to employees as well. It is very important that employee understands the leaders values which they want to deliver to customer. The understanding of these values should be there in employees mind. How the employee work and deliver their output makes an organisation culture. Since organisation culture is important to create an intrapreneur culture in the organisation. To successful launch of product there should be enthusiasm in the employees.

Teamwork: Team work is the coordination and harmony among employees. To achieve any target small teams are formed for the successful implementation of program. Team work is very important as it creates the pool of the idea and processes. It gives more efficient and effective output for the organisation efforts. Hence teamwork is useful for creating multiple dimension of a single approach.

TASK 2

P3, 4ps of innovation and the use of innovation funnel

To understand and utilize the power of innovation it is very useful to understand the 4ps of the innovation. It is also important from point of view of employees as well because this will give them better understanding of the innovation.

Product: It the solution which the organisation to the customer and which is the reason of the existence of the organisation. For innovation it is important to understand the product. With the in depth knowledge about product it gives strength to understand the dimension of the product. With the understanding of these dimensions it helps in creating more values in the product. So products are at core or in the centre for the innovation because innovation is done in the product.

Process:  There are two types of process open process and close process. In closed process no changes can be done in process of creating output from input, whereas in open process the changes can be done in the between of producing output from input. This process varies from industry to industry. It largely depends upon the flexibility of the process. For better implementation of innovation it is required to understand the process of innovation and then its production. It also important to know in which step of process it is required to bring some change.

Position: Now the next step is to understand the perception of customer about the product. No matter how much effective the innovation is and how much effective is product. If the customer perception is low or negative about product it will not work. For the successful commercialisation of the new product it is required to create a right image of the product in the customer mind. It should give a feeling of benefit to customer. Position should be able to create a sense of need and value of the product. It should attract customer that the product is needed for them and will give them more values than to the cost.

Paradigm: It is a situation where firm create an example for the other competitor for the product or process. It may change in policies of the firm. It may be incorporating the firm with the social work or contribution towards social welfare.

Innovation funnel:  The innovation funnel is the structured way of introducing change. It expresses the steps required for innovation. It is a form of flow chart or diagram which represents the serial number of step as well as the contribution of that step in the process.

P4: Development of frugal innovation in IEC Electronics

Innovation is creating something new in the existing product. This innovation leads to the better satisfaction and more values to the customers. However in the recent time most of the organisations are focusing on frugal innovation which focused on the low cost of the product without compromise in the quality. These lower costs are aimed to provide better service to the budget sensitive customer. The lower cost facilitates the wide use of product. It enables those people to buy products who could not afford it earlier. Since it increases the market for the product hence the demand. Since frugal innovation is in very demand because of its usefulness. The frugal innovation is important as it creates low cost to the firm. It also differentiate product from its competitor because of it low cost advantage. The frugal innovation develops in the organisation because of demand for the product in the market. There are three area of frugal innovation: - 1. Cost reduction 2. Basic functionality 3. Performance level. The first criteria for frugal innovation are to have a substantial cost reduction which gives a different direction to industry. The development of low cost arises with the small changes in the existing product. Sometimes change in the process as well. Whereas this process might be a delivery process, production process, supply chain management or post sales process. With the introduction ofsome changes in the process it createslost costs which introduce the price of the product. Another dimension is basic functionality of product. The cost reduction should not affect the basic functionality of the product. The basic function should be there in the product. The core feature should be there in the product. The product needs to deliver certain values to the product. The last step of frugal innovation is to have a certain performance level in the product. This performance level should satisfy the customer. Otherwise customer can deny the use of the product and product could become a failure. The performance level should be as per the expectation of the customers. The performance here means that it should match with the price of product and with the basic functionality of the product.

In IEC Electronics frugal innovation is developed to give the product benefit to large customers. The changes are done with the aim to provide medical services to the low budget customer. It is done to produce low cost medical equipment so that the major customer base could use it. Frugal innovation is a part of IEC electronics to meet with the customer demand.

TASK 3

P5: Commercial funnel and new product development

Customers are at the centre of the organisation. Commercial funnel is the process of leading the customer to the purchase of product to a repeat purchase.  This process includes creating awareness for the product by promotion and advertisement. Once customer is aware next step is to make an interest in customer mind by different promotion strategies like: sales promotion, free sample etc. After those customers evaluate the product and if customer is confused it contacts to company representative. Once customer is satisfied with the product he/she makes the purchase. Next step is to do post sales feedback from customer and follow up them for the nest purchase.

Given below the importance of commercial funnel:

Commercial funnel is important to fully utilize the value of innovation. This process helps in attracting more customers and earing more profit.

It is systematic approach of sales. Sales are the only revenue generation activity in the organisation. The careful implementations of this process boost the sales in many folds.

It gives competitive advantage to the firm. Because a product may be copied by the rival but not the experience which customer gets from the organisation.

This process gives maximum repeat purchase customer queries get solved by the organisation.

It also creates a right product positioning in the customer mind. This commercial funnel makes a link between the perception created by the marketing activities and the expectation of customer when they make purchase.

New Product development: Before commercial funnel new product development is very important for the firm. There are various steps in new product development.

Idea Generation: The first step is to create a new idea. This idea generation usually address to some problem. This idea is the solution to the problem.

Idea screening: Next step is to see the potential of the idea. It is when organisation evaluate the potential of idea to be commercial successful. This screening should do with the company strength and weakness. It should be evaluate whether firm is competitive to successful commercialization of the product.

Concept development and testing: Once the screening is done concept should be develop properly. In this step the idea need to be expressed in b-plan or marketing plan. All marketing concept should be tested by marketing research or pilot survey.

Product development: After successful marketing research product should be carefully develop with the feedback of the customer and the reviews received from the marketing research.

Test marketing and commercialization: After the development of the product there should be testing of the product. There can an in house testing or few free samples can be distributed in the market. The successful test marketing would result into the commercialization of the product.

P6: Innovation business case:

The IEC electronics has many innovation business cases. The sales revenue of the firm has increased many folds in the last 10 year. The firm is 50 years old and still very competitive in the industry. The major reason for this success is the innovation and changes that IEC electronics is doing in the last 50 years. The firm deals in many product such as Medical, Aerospace and industrial. IEC electronics knows from very beginning that electronic products has long life cycle. This makes them to do more of the development in the electronics. The innovation for the firm is to develop and bring new things in the product. So the firm focuses on the development of the product. There is continuous development in the product from the beginning of the company. The company has focused to do development in the recycled component. So the major focus of the firm is to save resources and product more output from less input. Since IEC electronics is tech-savy firm which strongly belief in saving the resources and providing high efficient product to customer. The firm also belief in not to waste anything. With this aim the firm is focusing on the recycling of the used component so the resources are fully utilized. In this scenario the firm did a intensive work to collect data. It also spends a good amount for the innovation like how would the new product emerge from the existing product. The firm utilized it resources in the way where the sold products could contribute in the further production. The firm promotes innovation as this recycle work would foster innovation. It would also give a competitive edge because once the product is used it is not waste for the customer. They could give it back top company. This would lower the cost of production. This is a long term strategies of the firm. The top management was aware of this thing so that is why the budget for this development is passed by the management. Before any rival copy this concept the firm would be that much efficient that they would be the market leader for the same. All these benefits from this innovation and development are known to the firm. So the funding was easy to get for the competitive advantage in the market. It is also very much to understand that funding is done by top management and in this case management was already in the favour of this project.

TASK 4

P7: Retention of knowledge and intellectual property right

IEC is the company which is very competitive in nature. Company have extensive knowledge about product and market. The leadership style and the vision of the company also support and promote innovation. Innovation and customer are core and centre of the organisation. The firm has many dimension of knowledge area which differentiates them with the competitor. In this competitive era the product and process become open in few days and even copied by the rivals. To remain in the market and industry it is very important for the firm to retain the knowledge. There are various ways by which knowledge and system can be retain and own by the firm. Intellectual property right are those right which a firm to retain and capture a knowledge or process for a specific time period. No one else could use this knowledge except the right holder. These rights include patent, trade mark, trade secrets etc. These rights are very popular and common now days. The copying of the product and process has become very common. This patent and trademark differentiates firms’ products from competitor.  It is very important tool as it gives a kind of monopoly to the firm. This gives the exclusive right of production to the company. The IEC electronics own many certificates and trademarks which is a key of success of the firm. The firm has international protection right for their products. The firm products are very critical in nature. These products are medical equipment, aerospace and defence. The firm is extra careful for the product and services. The firm fully ensure the quality of the product. That is why firms all products are upto the standard of the international market. The firm also all necessary certificates and right which are required for each market. In this firm is putting extra efforts and giving it 100 per cent. The firm also focuses on the documentation of product for country specific. Since the position of the firm is very competitive the firm renew the right certificates on the time. Being in the industry from last 50 years they know the value of retention of knowledge and give full and sincere attention to it.  The firm very well know the consequence of leakage of information and copy of product. So the management is extra careful for this. IEC electronics have rights for their each product and process.

Conclusion

This project is made with the aim to provide the insight of the innovation. The importance of innovation and value in the current scenario is the essential element of this project. From importance of the innovation to the retention of the knowledge everything is expressed in this project. Apart from this organisation culture and leadership impact on innovation is also described in this project. What are the important steps of the innovation are also described. How can be an idea be commercialised is also mentioned in this project. The commercialisation is very important topic as this measures the success of the innovation. How this innovation is embedded with the new product development is also described. New product development is the next part of the innovation. The step for new product development and its commercialisation has also given proper attention this project. The importance of market research is also described in this project.

References

• Aarikka-Stenroos, L. and Sandberg, B., 2012. From new-product development to commercialization through networks. Journal of Business Research. 65(2). pp.198-206.
• Bagchi-Sen, S., 2013. Strategic considerations for innovation and commercialization in the US biotechnology sector. European Planning Studies. 15(6). pp.753-766.
• Bogers, M. and West, J., 2015. Contrasting innovation creation and commercialization within open, user and cumulative innovation.
• Bogers, M. and West, J., 2014. Managing distributed innovation: Strategic utilization of open and user innovation. Creativity and innovation management. 21(1). pp.61-75.
• Ettlie, J. E. and Rosenthal, S. R., 2012. Service innovation in manufacturing. Journal of Service Management. 23(3). pp. 440-454.
• Gambardella, A. and McGahan, A. M., 2013. Business-model innovation: General purpose technologies and their implications for industry structure. Long range planning. 43(2). pp.262-271.
• Godin, B., 2012. “Innovation Studies”: The Invention of a Specialty. Minerva, 50(4). pp.397-421.
• Huizingh, E. K., 2013. Open innovation: State of the art and future perspectives. Technovation. 31(1). pp.2-9.

UPTO50%

Avail The Benefit Today!

To View this & another 50000+ Free Sample

Enter Email

Submit