PATTERNS AND TYPES OF INNOVATION

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