Today, innovation is without a single doubt the key to economic growth and a strong competitive advantage that increases production and procures sustainable job opportunities adding by that strong business value through the new products, services and technologies. We have attempted previously to explain the various recommendations to be taken into account while introducing and implementing innovation projects and the mistakes that should be avoided. Nevertheless, knowing the does and don’ts when it comes to introducing innovation isn’t enough to acquire a clear vision on innovation’s interactions with the industrial environment. Building on this, it appears essential to have an overall idea on the industrial innovation model that will establish a clear pathway towards the company’s objectives. For that, we will try to represent the various segments that build up the innovation concept through a conceptual model demonstrating mainly the process, strategy and overall environment of an industrial innovation project.
Figure 28: Conceptual model of innovation introduction and implementation.
Inputs
The input, in the case of the conceptual model described above, would be composed of essential elements that include mainly the human resources that are the innovation developers
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or founders, the financial resources that would be the budget provided by the top management to the innovation project and also the time to undertake the various steps of the relevant process to be able eventually to deliver the desired outcome.
Process
The process of innovation development starts with a searching phase that is primarily about looking for and finding innovation potentials and the derivation of ideas that would be ultimately evaluated. The innovation potential that is a newly discovered opportunity can be a total novel concept or an updated version of an existing one. Also, it could aim to conquer or create a new market or simply develop a novel technical solution, and there are countless ways to establish the search according to the choice of the innovation managers and how they choose to deploy the process’s inputs. Secondly, comes the phase of building up the chosen innovative concept. This involves several segments including the study of the customer requirements, the market size and potential, the imposed challenges and various risks and the thorough analysis of the trends, patents, standards and regulations etc. Building up a concept from scratch is far from being easy and this phase constitutes the foundation for the rest of the process. Therefore, if it contains any mistakes or unsolved problems, the entire process would slow down or even fail. Following so, it would be vital to scale the results of the first two steps. Once the solutions are developed and the prototypes are built accordingly, the outcomes should be measured and tests should be carried out. In this case testing doesn’t only involve lab testing but also market testing under real circumstances and conditions so as to acquire a comprehensive and full feedback. After the concept or innovative idea has been tested and has reached maturity, it would subsequently be moved towards the implementation and marketing so it can eventually be released for production. The following step that we talked about is the expansion step. It is about bringing the product or service to the market. Indeed, bringing it to the potential customers requires the marketing, logistics and sales channels to be all activated and aligned to answer the same objective that it ensuring the success of the innovative project.
Finally, the company must work on the sustainability of its product or service. To achieve so, it must evaluate how the customers are responding to the product/service in question through the customer feedback and satisfaction level, the sales or any other quantitative market metrics. This will enable the company eventually to determine if the innovative product is successful the way it has been commercialized or needs improvements.
Strategy
The strategy mentioned on the figure above concentrates on four major stages of the innovation chain that are required to transform the innovative ideas into commercial value for the company generating ultimately economic and social profits. It all starts with stimulating innovation through spreading awareness and information sharing through the various areas and disciplines of the organization. As we have already explained, for people to feel motivated they must be involved and they must comprehend what is the goal behind the innovative projects and what is exactly expected from them. Following so, innovation ought to be enabled through building supplier networks in order to make it easier for the
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organization to create and develop innovative projects and also support or assist the networking between support entities. In the same direction, the company must develop knowledge about innovation management through its structures, push its employees to improve the innovation strategies and determine the root causes for the company’s potential innovation weaknesses. The third stage that we have mentioned on the figure was about facilitating innovation. Innovation is easily introduced and implemented if the company chooses to follow the multiple recommendations that we have detailed on the previous subsection such as the communication, collaboration, integration of all employees, the clear responsibilities and others. Such initiatives would enable the company to easily introduce innovation as a beneficial concept for the organization and boost the employees to upgrade their capabilities and adopt a more acceptable attitude towards the related implementation. At last, comes the stage of commercializing innovation through the identification of new value chains and/or business partners that would increase the quality of commercialization of the existing prototypes or products/services. (German cooperation, n.d).
Objective
Innovation introduction and implementation have multiple goals and objectives to achieve such as the creation of an added value to the firm and increasing the economic growth and market share, still the main and initial one would be to present a sustainable and profitable creative solution to the market as a response to a certain industrial problem or dilemma.
Output
The output presented on the above figure would be as described the last version of the final product or service that would be commercialized to the market after the establishment of all the phases of the innovation process and its strategy stages.
Finally, this part has allowed us to acquire a broader perspective on technological innovation in industrial contexts. After assessing its importance, impact theoretically and concretely through some chosen examples, it appeared vital to take the discussion into the next level by talking about its implementation in terms of mistakes, recommendations, strategy and process via the presented conceptual model above. Obviously, what we have presented on this last part is only a way of perceiving things as other steps could be recommended or another model can be suggested. However, the point behind this analysis was to highlight the importance of considering the adequate policies and strategies when it comes to introducing innovation to the organization and its employees. In other terms, a successful innovation implementation or introduction doesn’t revolve only on focusing on the desired targets but depends mainly on the selected path and how all the company’s variables are reacting to it.
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