PATTERNS AND TYPES OF INNOVATION
Innovation is commonly recognized as a mode of
organizational change. Innovation mostly occurs in patterns and there are no.
of relationships that effect the innovation and based on various factors like
the individual motivation for the innovation, the culture within the workplace
and the challenge presented by the innovation. There are many patterns in which
innovation occurs and we can observe it in the nature like chemical reactions,
ecosystem or in culture like ideas, organization and information flow etc.
We can see a lot of types of patterns in different
categories or depending on the various principal factors like Serendipity,
Error, Exaptation, Liquid Networks etc. but if we go for the business aspect of
that we can see the patterns in a completely new manner like Product
innovation, Radical innovation, Competence Enhancing Innovation, Architectural
Innovation, Technology Improvement, Technology Diffusion etc. And moreover,
many of these patterns can be combined together to get something completely new
and out of box as well. Here, I will explain very briefly about the patterns in
general related to the business aspects of that.
PRODUCT INNOVATION
These are embodied in the output of the origination which
could be its product or services. For example, if UTAS invents a new kind of Landing
Gear, it’s a product innovation. Process innovation explains the way we do our
business like the different methods we opt to get our best product or services.
Process innovations are mainly related to improvise the efficiency or
effectiveness of the products or services like ACE (Achieving Competitive
Excellence).
New Products innovation and process innovation generally
occurs in tandem like new process may enable to get new products or vice-versa.
There could be another case when a product
innovation for one firm may simultaneously be a process innovation for another.
Though, the visibility of product innovations is much more than that of the
process innovations but both of them are equally important for the
organization.
RADICAL INNOVATION
The radicalness of an innovation
might be conceived as the newness or the differentness. The most radical
innovations would be new to the world and exceptionally different from existing
products and processes, and thus generally requires completely new
manufacturing and service processes. The radical innovations are generally
risky because of the new investment and the lack of awareness in producers and
the customers as well.
Generally, radicalness of an
innovation is relative and may change over the time and it could be radical on
one firm while it’s just an incremental innovation for other one depending on
the type of innovation.
COMPETENCE-ENHANCING INNOVATION
If an innovation is enhancing the organization’s knowledge
base, they are termed as competence enhancing innovations and thus leverage the
organizations’ existing competencies and make them more valuable.
Sometimes the competence enhancing innovations for a company
could be the competence destroying ones for another firm.
ARCHITECTURAL INNOVATION
An architectural
innovation entails changing the
overall design of the system or the way that components interact with each
other. It may completely reconfigure the way that components links together,
with or without changing the components altogether.
These innovations have generally
had far-reaching and complex effects on industry competitors and technology
users, and also create changes in the system that reverberates throughout its
design. In order to adopt such innovations, organizations should have the
in-depth knowledge of the components and their link with each other and how they
adapt themselves in the whole system.
TECHNOLOGICAL IMPROVEMENT AND
DIFFUSION
Technology improvements are related with the amount of
amount of effort and money invested which is generally slow initially and then
accelerates with the time. It is slow initially due the lack of clear understanding
of the technology fundamentals. Innovation occurs in the acceleration phase at
a higher rate and thus begins to gain legitimacy as a worthwhile endeavour and
in turn attracting more researchers or developers and other interested business
and parties.
A different kind of scenario comes into the picture when the
technology diffusion happens where the adoption it is very slow initially due
to lack of awareness but it accelerates as the knowledge of the technology
increases with more and more people using that.
To conclude, these patterns are
a helpful way to structure a conversation about new business ideas. In
addition, what begins as a relatively simple extension of an existing business
often grows into a whole new business. The innovation patterns will keep on
evolving as well depending on the various factors, businesses and the needs of
the various industries but the principal factors are going to be same like
pro-active and active innovation or buy-in and reactive innovation or
continuous and transformation innovation or necessary and imposed innovation.
We can obersve, related and adapt these patterns to get more ideas from our
everyday work and life and become more innovating and thus helping the human
mankind directly or indirectly.
Happy Innovating!
Nitin
References:
Patterns of Innovation Schilling, M.A
Innovation in Depth by David Benco
Where Good Ideas Come From – The Natural History of Innovation Steven
Johnson
Factors INFLUENCING INNOVATION Eleanor D. Glor
