Understanding Focal Innovation: Product, Process, Marketing, And Organizational Innovation Essay.

Product Innovation

Question:

Discuss about the Competitiveness and Globalization Management.

There are different types of innovations that can be considered in focal innovation. However, it is very important to have a clear and definite understanding of innovation. In this context, the process of innovation can be compared with invention. Nevertheless, the process of innovation is more complex than invention (Awuor 2016). Typically, innovation can be defined as a process of making changes in different capacities so as to influence creation of new items that may in this case include products, processes, services and more commodities in different areas of specialization. These new items have capacity to bring positive impacts to the organization since their existence have a positive value addition to the firms and other organizations. Focal innovation in product innovation, process innovation, marketing innovation and organizational innovation can be analyzed critically to determine their value additions.

This refers to innovation model whose venture involve creation of new products in an organizational setup so as to bring value addition from sale of these products. Again, product innovation is based on creation of new goods and services for market venture. In that case, some innovators may decide to improve specification of existing goods and services via technical aspects, components along with material specifications (Awuor 2016).  It can also involve creation of new products that can be used in production process of other items. In return, the organization will be able to run smoothly as a result of product innovation. In that case, the organization will be able to increase revenue, to reduce costs of production along with other advantages that arise from product innovation. In product innovation, the party taking part in this case will bring the product under consideration to the market so that the consumers can assess their credibility. If the new product is feasible to the consumers, then more resources can be committed in bringing more attractive changes in that particular product. In that connection, the innovator need to apply certain strategies and phases in product innovation as indicated in the diagram below. In most cases, product innovation integrate with process innovation.

This is another important aspect of focal innovation. This involves creation of new production processes as well as improvement of existing production process so as to for consumers lists of preferences. This innovation will focus on creation of new processes in production in terms of software development and material or equipment innovation or improvement (Awuor 2016). It also involve significant changes in production techniques used in production process. Just like in product innovation, there is perfect positive correlation between the two types of innovations as indicated in the diagram below.

Process Innovation

Typically, marketing innovation revolves what goes around the marketplace in terms of market creation and improvement. There are different types of markets that include perfect market, monopoly market, and duopoly market together with oligopoly market structures (Awuor 2016).   This innovation involve improvement in product designs, product placement, product promotion as well as pricing process.

This innovation is very crucial in any organization. This innovation involves initiation of new methods in an organization, initiation of new business practices, initiation and improvement in workplace organization culture, promotion of internal and external relations.

The concept of focal innovation in terms of technology and market van be determined from the diagram below. In this diagram, the technology push follow a specific path. Starting from research and development to manufacturing. Then from manufacturing to marketing. Finally, the users will obtain items from that market.

On the other hand, the same technology push can be demonstrated in terms of market pull (Bolstorff 2011). Market pull begin from marketing to research and development. Then to manufacturing where the path end at the user. The two models accomplish similar purpose. In that case, focal innovation may be primarily subjected to technology push or demand pull.

Another aspect that can be based to focal innovation is market pull. I tend to agree that market structure play a very important role when it comes to innovation. This is because the main objective of these types of innovation is to reach the market in quality nature (Bragg 2015). These innovations are market oriented hence are primarily triggered by market pull. In summary, focal innovation will there be incorporated in both technology push and market pull. However, market pull will dominate over technology push because technology is subjected to rapid and random changes. Market structure take a lot of time to change hence offering ample time for focal innovation.

The focal innovation is primarily based on business model innovation rather than technological innovation. It is good to note that business model innovation is dominant to technological innovation since these innovation are based on profit orientation (Cachon 2012). The fact that many innovators aim at creating new products and improvement of other products and services, the main objective is to improve business performance. In that case, the organization will generate more profits and interests out of focal innovation. Technological innovation is just a formality of time factor. Technological innovation take place by default. In that case, many innovators will prefer business model innovation to technological innovation.

Marketing Innovation

My focal innovation is an open innovation. This is because, closed innovation implies that, the innovators have no chances to make future improvement to these innovations. The purpose of these innovations is to accommodate changes once a gap arise in the organization. In that case, open innovation will accommodate changes in the future so as to make the innovations more credible. For instance, product innovation is open to improvement since a lot of changes occur with time (Chopra 2012). With time, consumers and customers lose tastes in certain product as services. This implies that, a closed innovation will not facilitate fulfilment of their lists of preferences in the market. For open innovation, the innovator just need to identify areas to make changes. Therefore, changes made to goods and services in product innovation will avoid losses to the organization under consideration. In summary, we opt to select open innovation and discard closed innovation.

The supply side of a given sector will be of great importance if we consider each innovation differently. To start with, product innovation is highly associated to supply side. The management of product innovation towards supply has a lot of influence to the pace of diffusion. This is because there are several factors in the products and services that will directly and indirectly influence supply (Daft 2015). First, if the goods and services invented are of good quality, supply is likely to increase. However, increase in prices of those goods and services will increase supply higher. For the case of process innovation, the production process can be done in a way to favor the supply. The reverse is also true. The considerable control for supply side in terms of pace of diffusion will be influenced by factors such as relationship management, experimentation, complexity, compatibility and degree of improvement.

This is also important to these types of innovations. The management of product innovation will improve the quality of goods and services. The impact of this innovation to demand is perfect. If products are improved in quality, the demand will increase. A lot of people will be willing to consume the products and services. In addition, process innovation will influence the pace of diffusion towards the demand side. Changing the production process will improve the management of focal innovation thus improving the demand. Marketing innovation will involve the product design, promotion of products and pricing. Changing product design will attract new consumers hence favoring the demand side (Prasch 2008). Pricing can influence the management of focal innovation in two ways. Increasing prices of products and services will make consumers to strain. This will reduce the demand. The reverse is also true. The considerable control of demand side in terms of pace in diffusion is influenced by factors such as market awareness, customer propensity to adopt and network effects.

Organizational Innovation

This focal innovation will benefit from first-mover advantages rather than late mover advantages. This is because, first-mover advantages involve organizational setup where the organization is more flexible than the competitors. The organization will be able to outdo the competitors. Focal innovation will assist the organization to achieve competitive advantage. In that case, product innovation, process innovation, marketing innovation and organizational innovation will collective assist the organization. Again, it will be able to products, services and processes to reach the market first than in late-mover advantage. These types of advantages that come along with first-mover advantages include buyer switching costs, reputation, pre-emption of scarce resources, scale benefits along with experience curve benefits.

These advantages are likely to be durable because focal innovation is also evolving. None of the innovations miss out future implications (Fletcher 2012). Therefore, in the process of future focal innovations, the first-mover advantages tend to carry forward towards the future. Again, new markets are initiated day in day out. Thus, there will be initiation of products, services and process every time a new market is venture along with first-mover advantages.

The aspect of imitation is minimal due to aspects used to protect innovators. There has been initiation of protection policies and procedures to protect innovations and their innovations (Hughes 2008). There has been many polies for IP protection (Christopher 2011). These policies include copyrights, patents, trademarks, industrial designs, domains names, geographical indications and protection of new variety of plants. There are also legal status used to protect innovators ideologies. In that case, these innovations have low possibility of imitation.

There are very few necessary complementary assets from focal innovation to the same protection policies and procedures subjects to the case of imitation. The assets that fall under that category of complementary assets need to satisfy the legal framework that the correlation between assets in focal innovation and complementary assets is minimal (Hitt 2014). If complementary assets are increased, then chances of imitation may arise. In that case, our focal innovation need to maintain the number of complementary assets as low as possible. The policies and procedures needed to control the complementary are based on policies such as copyrights, patents, trademarks, industrial designs, domains names, geographical indications and protection of new variety of plants (Lesserre 2012). There are also legal status used to protect innovators ideologies. In that case, these innovations have low possibility of imitation as a result of allowing more complementary assets.

Technology and Market

It is important to note that focal innovation can be protected by patent as a form of policy and procedures of protection of original work. A patent is policy used to prevent other parties from using another person work, from making another person work, selling or trading inventions and innovations completed by another person (Peng 2013). In that case, patent become an agreement between the public and the inventor. The inventor’s property is protected legally by low for a given time period. After about 20 years of legal protection, the law open the property as a public property. At that time the public is allowed to use the property without legal implications.

Apart from patent, there are other legal protections set aside to protect private work. These policies include copyrights, patents, trademarks, industrial designs, domains names, geographical indications and protection of new variety of plants (Ryan & Deci 2017). There are also legal status used to protect innovators ideologies. These policies are very important as far as private work such as innovations and inventions are concerned.

My focal innovation is not disruptive innovation at all. The aspect of focal innovation that take place in the initiation phases is a just a formality. However, in the process of making these innovations, there are a certain requirements that need to be considered. This include technological aspects such as those used to advance the products and services (Saloner 2009). There could be costs associated to protection policies in patents, copyright, trademarks, industrial designs, domains names, geographical indications and protection of new variety of plants. These requirements are very crucial to focal innovation. They cannot be termed as disruption since they are very vital in focal innovation.

There is a correlation between internal value chain and external value chain. An external value chain is a sequence of internal value chain (Segal-Horn 2009). The diagram below indicate the external value chain that can be adopted in my focal innovation.

The value preposition of this focal innovation will assist the customer segment so as to assist the customers in fulfilling the list of preference of customers to be considered in each innovation (Tallman 2009). The value addition indicted by each of innovation collectively assist the customers in all the services in terms of quantity, quality and time. The customer segment will continue to enjoy value addition from more development in focal innovation.

There are a number of revenue models that can be integrated in focal innovation. In this case, the revenue models that fit focal innovation are diamond model, business model and technological model (Thomas 2009). In the diagram below, a summary of models are demonstrated.

References.

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Bolstorff, P 2011, Supply Chain Excellence: A Handbook for Dramatic Improvement Using the SCOR Model, AMACOM.

Bragg, SM 2015, Accounting for Inventory, Accounting Tools.

Cachon, G 2012, Matching Supply with Demand: An Introduction to Operation Management, McGraw-Hill Education.

Chopra, S 2012, Supply Chain Management, Pearson Education.

Christopher, M 2011, Logistics and Supply Chain Management, FT Press.

Daft, RL 2015, Management, South Western College Pub.          

Fletcher, F 2012, Business Problem Solving, Routledge.

Hitt, MA 2014, Strategic Management: Concept, Competitiveness and Globalization, South-Western College Pub.

Hughes, D 2008, The Ultimate Supply Teacher’s Handbook, Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.

Lesserre, P 2012, Global Strategic Management, Palgrave.

Peng, MW 2013, Global Strategy, South-Western College Pub.

Prasch, RE 2008, How Markets Work: Supply, Demand and the Real World, Edward Elgar Pub.

Ryan, RM., & Deci, EL 2017, Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Need in Motivation, development and Wellness, The Guilford press.

Saloner, G 2009, Strategic Management, Wiley Publisher.

Segal-Horn, S 2009, understanding Global Strategy, Cengage Learning.

Tallman, S 2009, Global Strategy, Wiley-Blackwell.

Thomas, KW 2009, Intrinsic Motivation: What Really Drives Employees Engagement, Berret-Koehler publishers.