The Information and Communication Technologies Industry of United Kingdom

Innovations form the main sources of competitive advantages and are always of significance for the growth of a company. Companies or organizations put their greater efforts in improving their performance by finding new ideas and knowledge on the best way of beating their competitors and therefore give satisfaction to their customers. There are various factors involved in the innovation design system which can be either internal or external.

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

Innovation is an important tool in all companies and organizations. It helps them to create new products or change their current products in a way that brings them huge competitive advantage. It changes how the products are created and delivered and the risks that are undertaken to deliver the products. Regular and focused innovation is thus extremely important in the survival of organizations as is evidenced in the history of many of the successful organizations(Shane & Ulrich, 2004). In the IT sector, innovation is extremely important and is even known to be a priority. Various government agencies as well as private sector companies have stated that lack of innovation is a huge risk to the future of the organization and should be avoided at all costs. These sentiments are shared across the governments of Australia, UK, Canada, US, India and South Africa. This is to show that the importance of innovation cuts across all continents and countries(Bessant & Tidd, 2011).

Innovation is important to understand as a manager and as an employee for an organization. United Parcel Service (UPS), Hewlett-Packard and The Coca-Cola Company have all used innovation in their business processes to make improvements by introducing new products or services or revamping old processes. These businesses know that innovation is needed to prosper and stay ahead of the competition.

Tidd et al (2000) states, “the innovation is a business process of revolving opportunity into new ideas and of putting these into widely used practice. In term of the nature, there are five major types of innovations: novelty, competence shifting, complexity, robust design and continuous improvement. While in term of the extent of change, innovations can be divided into incremental, radical and

Innovation, the ability to change and take risk; is a key attribute to success. No company has become successful by keeping their old ways, or staying to the “tried and true” (Foster, 1986). No successful business can stay successful regardless of how much money or technology they have, if they do not know how to keep evolving with time. Success isn’t built off one tool; it is built off a variety of tools. This book taught me that one must constantly adapt to the world around you, because it won’t slow down. We live in an ever-changing world. One must be willing and able to change. This book teaches how to be “unsafe” in the world of business, never stick with one way, never rely on one source of success; be ready to change it and find

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 is the main driver behind competitive advantage in the marketplace. Therefore real commitment to innovation will require heavy investments in products, partnerships and research.

What if you could make innovation an integral part of your process? No one argues against continuous improvement. The concept of improving results and performance on a continual basis is universally hailed as a great idea. Doing it is another matter. First off, in order to improve continuously, you have to improve initially. Sometimes it’s easy to see the flaws. Most of the time, it’s not. That’s why business results are often a mixed bag: two steps forward, one step back, sometimes better, sometimes worse. Simply stated, the goal is better, then better still.

Innovation can be expressed as the application of new ideas to the processes and products and all the productive activities of an entity that can result to increased productivity and value. The new idea that alters how products and services are offered has the potential of bringing benefit to all the stakeholders within an enterprise. It is erroneous to assert that there is a correlation between the rising level of unemployment in the global economy with innovation and technology. A single gadget that can perform work that can be done by a group of individuals, but the benefit of innovation far outweighs the few changes in operations that lead to reemployment and loss of jobs (Andersen 160). In a global economy innovation has been a key factor that enabled companies to maintain their competitive edge, increase and improve production and operation processes and generate adequate profits to remain in business.

Innovation refers to finding new ways to improve the existing products, services, processes, technologies, and employee performance in an organizational setup. In today's competitive business environment, organizations have to focus on bringing innovation in each and every aspect of their business operations; like products or service offerings, enterprise resource planning systems, marketing and promotional efforts, and organizational structure. The market challenges and competitive pressures also force organizations to use a blend of all these innovation processes in their business activities. Therefore, it is vital to give an equal focus on product innovation, process innovation, marketing innovation, and organizational innovation within the limited organizational resources and capabilities.

With respect to the IP and Innovation, Open Innovation seems to be the fastest way to a brighter and better world. Open Innovation implies an innovation ecosystem where ideas and knowledge flow across firm boundaries. Innovations that appear less

Research has indicated through various thesis and reports that innovation is a continuous process, it will be interesting to look at factors that show why most innovative ideas do

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.

When the need of wanting to be different arises, the need to innovate takes a strong hold in one’s mind to bring about new changes that are often challenged in many different styles, manner, methods and modes. To my understanding different types of innovations requires and employs different innovative strategy or strategies. Which in turn determines the growth phase of the organization and its strategic approach and desired outcome of the innovation.