Managing Innovation Strategy

Innovation Types Product Innovation Process Innovation Strategy Innovation

Product Innovation The process of bringing to life a new product/service to solve the customer's problem benefits

Process Innovation Process innovations increase bottom-line profitability, reduce costs, raise productivity, and increase employee job satisfaction. The customer also benefits from this type of innovation by virtue of a stronger, more consistent product or service value delivery.

Strategy Innovation Strategy innovation is about challenging existing industry methods of creating customer value in order to meet newly emerging customer needs, add additional value, and create new markets and new customer groups for the sponsoring company.

Incremental Innovation Substantial Innovation Breakthrough Innovation Innovation Levels Incremental Innovation Substantial Innovation Breakthrough Innovation

McDonald’s Innovation Product Process Strategy Breakthrough Big Mac Franchisee Regulations of Quality Global Expansion Substantial Value Meals Hamburger University Opening for Breakfast Incremental Green Milkshakes for St. Pat’s Day New French Fry Cookers Boston Markets Acquisition

Innovation Model Model 1: The Suggestion System Model 2: Continuous Improvement Teams Model 3: New Venture Teams Model 4: The Incubator Lab Model 5: Innovation Teams

Model 1 : The Suggestion System Suggestion programs provide employees an organized system through which to submit ideas and to have those ideas considered by a panel of dispassionate reviewers, who accept or reject them depending on pre-established criteria from management.

Model 2: Continuous Improvement Teams Unlike suggestion programs that focus on motivating individual contributors to come forward with their ideas, Continuous Improvement Model systems rely on team collaboration.

Model 2: Continuous Improvement Teams Sometimes called Kaizen Teams, (kaizen is the Japanese word for continuous improvement), they mostly focus on incremental, rather than substantial or breakthrough process on product improvements.

Model 2: Continuous Improvement Teams Nevertheless, when these seemingly small, continuous tweaks produced by firm's rank and file workers are added up, they can be substantial in their bottom-line impact.

Model 4: New Venture Teams The goal of the New Venture Team Model is decidedly not cost-saving ideas, not incremental improvements, and not process innovations. Rather, the goal is more apt to be surfacing (and funding) unconventional product, service, or strategy ideas that have the potential to be breakthroughs.

Model 5: The Incubator Lab The Incubator Model of Idea Management gained popularity along side the dot-corn bubble of the late 1990s and lost favor just as fast.

Model 5: The Incubator Lab Beneath the hype, the basic idea of incubators was not too different from the skunkworks approach pioneered by Lockheed during World War II to rapidly develop and launch new aircraft by forming small, dedicated teams separate from the bureaucracy.

The gist of this approach is to set up a company-wide network of people with demonstrated skills in innovation and give them very clear marching orders: Go out and find some new ideas that have promise. Model 7: Innovation Teams

Innovation Strategy Scan and monitor the sources of innovation opportunity. Create a personal future-scan system. Integrate future scanning with your company's idea management system.

Innovation Strategy Assault industry assumptions. Broaden your company's vision. Strategize your place in the first mover, fast follower race.

Producing Innovative Products Study previous breakthrough products. Focus relentlessly on value creation throughout the development process. Design and implement a new product development process.

Producing Innovative Products Use a learning strategy for more radical ideas. Use cross-functional teams. Use rapid prototyping.

Source of Reference: Robert B. Tucker, Driving Growth Through Innovation, Berrett-Koehler Publishers.