2005-03-01 | In­nov­a­tion Man­age­ment – An Over­view and some Best Prac­tices

Innovation is being turned to by business and political leaders as a miracle cure, allowing companies and economies to stay competitive in ever changing world markets. For all of the talk about the importance of innovation, innovation management and creativity in business, the topics are hardly generally well understood. This paper seeks to provide a broad view of innovation, innovation management, creativity, and best practices.

There are two major types of innovation - product and process innovation. As a third type hybrids combine product and process innovation. Product innovation is concerned with bringing new or greatly improved goods or services to market. Process innovation concerns itself with improving the business functions required to profit from providing goods or services. This includes (but is not limited to) strategic planning, inventory control, logistics, personnel training, communicating, financing and marketing. Much of the focus and hype around innovation is focused on product innovation - particularly radical innovation. This has the largest potential payoffs, but carries the most risk.

Innovation management is the economic implementation and exploitation of new ideas and discoveries, and the implementation of an innovation culture in an organization, to promote and make possible the development of new ideas and business opportunities. Innovation management consists of innovation strategy, culture, idea management and implementation of innovation processes. This C-LAB report ends with a brief outlook on further areas of research. 

Link to Report