Game Plan Research Paper

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.

Alongside the entrepreneur spirit, Innovation is the process of taking new ideas and implementing them into the market. Key word being “new”, an innovation can be sometimes viewed as the application to better solutions that meet new demand-requirements, inarticulated needs or existing market needs. Innovative ideas range from: goods, services, products, processes, services, technologies or ideas that create value for which customers will pay for. For an idea to be an innovation, it must be replicable at an economical cost and must satisfy a specific need. This means is that one must be ready and willing put their new idea to the test. On the other hand, there is recognition that “innovation is also critical to cultural, environmental, social, and artistic progress as well” (Bullinger, 2006). With this stated, high-tech innovation is ultimately the reason why we can be thankful for the many new conveniences of the 21st century. Although we might see the forefront of innovation being very prominent in today’s world, innovation is truly nothing new. From the start of modern man times, innovative ideas have paved the way for civilization to advance and develop into what we are today and at the same time, we have barely begin to chip away at the tip of the iceberg of our true human potential. Some scholars believe that innovation is a

The environment of an individual including culture of the company, management style, level of stress at work, etc…are also very important factors.

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

Processual approach: Strategy is produced in an incremental fashion, as a 'pattern in a stream of decisions'. Fuzzy approach: Companies sometimes adopt an incremental approach to change. What's different between these two approach?

For this assignment, you will research the innovation architecture of at least three companies that are well-known for successfully supporting a culture of innovation. Write a 1,500-word paper that addresses the following:

The Breakthrough Innovation Framework, or BrinnovationTM, incorporates Kotter’s Leading Change model, while emphasizing a framework of innovation (Gupta, 2011). The Brinnovation framework accentuates the abilities and talents of those in the system, with its success depending on a change in the organization’s culture to embrace innovation (Gupta, 2011). The leadership can achieve a transformation in organizational thinking by applying Kotter’s eight-step plan, focusing on creativity (Gupta, 2011).

The purpose of this Case Study Analysis is to implement the knowledge that was gained during the course MBA 555 Business strategy. In the first part of the analysis will be described the history of the company, its products, the key success factors and the changes that were

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

These R&D labs usually concentrated on bringing out new technologies for self-commercialisation. This process can be viewed in the form of a funnel, where a large number of varied ideas and concepts can be trimmed down to few of those concepts and ideas that best meet the requirements of the company. (OECD, 2008) In recent times, companies have become more open with their innovation process, leading to revolution described as “Open Innovation” by Chesbrough (2003). This ‘open innovation’ model is a more dynamic model when compared the traditional model as there is much more interaction between knowledge assets outside the company as well as inside. Henry Chesbrough (2003) in his book “Open Innovation: New Imperative for creating and profiting from technology” defines open innovation as a concept in which companies must use ideas from inside as well as outside sources and find internal and external ways to reach the market in order to advance their technological capabilities. Open innovation combines these 3

Cooper described the Stage-Gate model in his book “Winning at new products” in 1988 as an Idea-to-launch system which is a plan driven model with “plan-your-work and work-your-plan” approach. It implements sequential development process where project activities are conducted within a stage and critical decisions are made within a gate. This process decides how an idea transforms into a product and reaches the market. Various versions of Stage-Gate models exist like Generic and Spiral Product development process models by (Ulrich & Eppinger, 2003)[7] and Royce’s Waterfall model[8] in 1970 as can be seen in all the seven companies investigated in this case

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.

The second stage is selection. It is well known fact that innovation is risky. In order not to fail, firm has to thoroughly assess the opportunities, so innovation will be held within the frame of company’s technological and marketing competences and will be coherent with overall business strategy (Tidd, J., Bessant, J., 2009). There are three components in this phase. The first component comes from previous stage and implies the analysis of opportunities, both marketing and technological, procurable for the firm. The second component includes the distinctive features company possesses, which are knowledge base, employees, equipment and experience (Prahalad, C., Hamel, G., 1990). The third component is suitability to the overall business strategy. This implies the fact that proposed innovation should be beneficial for firm’s performance, in other words, be in company’s competence base, otherwise it could lead to the failure (Cooper, R., 2000).

It is very important that staffs from different backgrounds are engaged in formulating innovative products. In general, the innovation project team should involve the below personnel: •

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.