First Mover or Fast Second Essay

Innovation and innovation strategies are critical to keeping companies competitive in their chosen fields of endeavor. Consumers benefit significantly from the availability of and access to the latest in technology. This paper

A first mover strategy requires getting into the market immediately, so technology is a big part of this strategy. A technological advantage can provide a barrier to entry and create an instant competitive advantage for an organization by allowing them to enter a new market. An organization can use patents and copyrights on technological change as a competitive advantage for years. On the other hand, it can shut an organization completely out of a market if its competitor capitalizes on

Invention is the result of a long study, research, and experimentation (Innovation, n.d.); Innovation is “the discovery and the execution of pioneering ideas that create value” (Greco, 2011), in other words, new application of known concepts. A practical example of invention is the alkaline battery that provided a light-weight, small, and portable power source; innovation applied this concept to anything possible from communication devises, mecanich and construction tools, and even toys. Technical workstream leaders understand that innovators are today’s competitors reducing times, and maximazing profits with new techniques; but inventors have the potential to reshape the landscape of today’s markets leaving dominant companies out of bussiness. Who remembers door-to-door salesmen or “dear John”

Because we started out strong with creative and innovative designs in the mobile market, there was a chance we could have kept our dominant design. However, we lacked management of technological innovation because we did not keep up with the technological cycle by “birthing” new technology. We needed an innovation stream to protect our company from competitors. Instead, technological discontinuity came into play; discontinuous change overtook us with design competition and our dominant design fell behind. We fell into a technological lockout when companies like apple advanced their technology to touch screens and Google used speech-to-text features. We kept using our trackballs and keyboards. Incremental change only kept feeding our competitors improvement while we lagged.

Take a look at the examples provided by Apple – the company is the most successful at the products they have already created, with their “cash cow” or most profitable product being the iPhone. Thus, if you worked for Apple, you would look at your consumer base and discover how to upsell them on better, more improved Apple products. This, of course, could leave you vulnerable to potential disruptors if you fail to take into account or ignore niche markets, but, in my opinion, people really just want the best product. They want quality, innovation, and superiority – if your company offers the best improvements incrementally in ways that customers expect – e.g., fuel injection – you can improve your product in your current market and succeed against your competitors. If you create an unexpected innovation to your product, such as with the automobile, the iPhone 6S, and the Macbook Pro with Retina Display, you can radically keep your clients’ interest while increasing your market share with continued

The article raises the issue of revenue growth stalls that affect even the most successful companies. The article focuses on four major causes of the crisis. The first cause is the premium-position captivity that is”the inability of a firm to respond effectively to new, low-cost competitive challenge or to a significant shift in customer valuation of product features” (p.54). The second reason is the innovation management breakdown that is”some chronic problem in managing the internal business process for updating existing product and services and creating new one” (p.56). Third reason is the premature

firms It has been suggested that the disappointing performance of U.S. firms during the 1980s in technology-intensive, global markets was from failure to improve upon products and processes. It has been cited that "the U.S. makes the breakthroughs, while other countries, especially Japan, provide the follow-through." Revolutionary innovation has been contrasted with less dramatic advancements. Incremental improvement can turn products over and get more, newer models out. This may all sound dull, but the achievements can be exhilarating. American firms may have failed to follow up on their breakthroughs with such continuous improvements. Where there were successes, they were built upon a combination of breakthroughs and incremental improvements. It is the subject of yet another discourse as to what constitutes an innovation: a breakthrough or an incremental improvement, or both, and/or everything in between. 4. To take advantage of opportunity It is no surprise that surprises, often disappointing surprises, are the seeds of innovation. Take the oil companies. It is no surprise that some oil companies are becoming oil-andgas companies. Why? Because gas is found more often and in greater abundance than oil

During the next stage, maturity, there is intense rivalry for a mature market. Efforts may be limited to attracting a new population, leading to a proliferation of sizes, colors, attachments, and other product variants. Battling to retain the company’s share, each marketer steps up persuasive advertising, opens new channels of distribution, and grants price concessions. Unless new competitors are obstructed by patents or other barriers, entry is easy. Thus, maturity is a period when sales growth slows down and profits peak and then start to decline. Strategy in the maturity stage comprises the following steps: (a) search for new markets and new and varied uses for the product, (b) improvement of product quality through changes in features and style, and (c) new marketing mix perspectives. For the leader firm, Step c may mean introducing an innovative product, fortifying the market through multibrand strategy, or engaging in a price-promotion war against the weaker members of the industry; the nonleader may seek a differential advantage, finding a niche in the market through either product or promotional variables.

Furthermore, the true significance of disruptive technology even in Christensen's conception of it is not its displacing of established products. Rather, it is a great means for enlarging and broadening markets and providing new functionality. And according to Utterbacks’ explanation: “The degree to which the market was expanded by the innovation seemed to be the strongest factor favouring new entrants”, a possible conclusion might be that this leads to a never-ending circle.

“The Innovator’s Dilemma” describes Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation. But, his theory isn’t essentially briefed as one would assume. Her opinion is that case studies (like disk-drive industry) were chosen by the author to demonstrate his perception, as well as subjectively distinct success metrics.

Technological change is a fundamental driver of economic development and performance, not only at the level of firms and industries but also economies. Innovation is the organizational process through which new

All companies desire to dominate any given market without being outfought or outwitted by rivals. However, the implications of

William and Fornell (1985) define a market pioneer as “a company that is the first in developing products or

Tidd and Bessant (2009) argued that “Unless an organization is able to move into further innovation, it risks being left behind as others take the lead in changing their offerings, their operational processes or the underlying models that drive their business”.

Innovation offers the companies a competitive advantage. Presently and within the future, more than any time in history, the key to competitive advantage is innovation. However innovation will facilitate businesses meet all of their strategic challenges, not simply competition; to illustrate, in confronting accelerating rates of change, globalization, apace advancing technology, a additional numerous workforce, associated a modification from an industrial to a knowledge-based economy. Meeting all of those challenges helps the firm attain competitiveness, and meeting these challenges suitably depends on innovation. Innovation allows a firm to workout its challenges in distinctive ways in which build competitive advantage either through relative differentiation, a relative low-priced position, or few acceptable level of each. Innovation cannot assure success, however success cannot be achieved within the end of the day without it.