"Innovation" in today's business world has become a buzzword and one that is used indiscriminately. So, let’s talk about Innovation. Is Innovation an Innovation in itself? Is it the new "old"?
Innovation is as old as human civilization, so much so that it is an integral part of human evolution. “From sticks and stones, to spears to industrial revolution” and “from stones, to matchsticks, to nuclear generated fuel” - Innovation is part of human DNA. The need for innovation is very basic. We want to better our lives, do things with more ease, accomplish more with less. It starts from being creative and having an urge to change for the better. It is interesting to note how innovation is built into vision statements for every part of a company.
Hence, applied to business context, Innovation creates differentiation, market value and customer loyalty. Innovation can help transform and disrupt existing markets or create new ones. Innovation is perhaps one of the most important tools to ensure success and market relevancy of a business. So, what is Innovation? Is it the same as invention?
For our purpose, we can settle with the definition that “Innovation is an idea applied successfully in practice”. "Successfully in practice" is the key differentiation for an invention to be called an Innovation.
As Wikipedia explains “For innovation to occur, something more than the generation of a creative idea or insight is required: the insight must be put into action to make a genuine difference, resulting for example in new or altered business processes within our organization, or changes in the products and services provided.”
Hence, there are three important concepts in innovation – ideation, evaluation and commercialization. Ideation is the act of collecting and evolving ideas - the creativity pool. Evaluation is the act of prioritization- the viability assessment. Commercialization is the act of realization - the industrialization (we will explore each of these in upcoming blogs).
Idea is the seed which starts an innovation’s life cycle. A good idea may happen by chance but harvesting good ideas to create success comes from a method – a method to manage innovation. Statistics support that companies that innovate successfully do so using an efficient and repeatable methodology.
There is more than one method to manage innovation. Irrespective of which method you use, it has to be repeatable and dependable. (watch for my next write-up where i will explore further)
