Assignment Innovation in Business: 3com Ltd

INNOVATION
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Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1 Importance of innovation and its comparison with invention...............................................3
P2 Shaping of innovation............................................................................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
P3 Explain 4Ps of Innovation and using innovation funnel........................................................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
P5 Importance of commercial funnel and the application of new product development............8
P6 Innovation building case for 3com Ltd including source of access fund..............................9
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................10
P7 Various tools for developing, retaining and protecting intellectual property......................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
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INTRODUCTION
In the present competitive business environment, it has become important to maintain the
standards and quality of products so that customer’s satisfaction level can be maintaining and
developed with time. Frequent changes are required in the distinct products that are available in
the market as it is important to maintain the interest of the customers (Aarikka-Stenroos, and
Sandberg, 2012). Innovation is a technique that helps in bringing change in the commodities by
adding new features to them. Invention on the other hand is a different concept in which an
entirely new product is launched in the market which has capacity to attract more customers.
3com small scale organization which deals in network cards, servers hubs etc. Since the product
in which the referred organization is dealing is of type that has high demand in the market it has
to give more attention on marinating innovation and invention in its products. The following
report will discuss different aspects of both these concepts and will put light on how they help in
developing business.
TASK 1
P1 Importance of innovation and its comparison with invention
3com was founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe and since than it is delivering effective
networking solutions in different parts of the world. It deals in IT technology that come across
continuous upgradation. It is required that the management of referred organization give
emphasis on adopting innovation in its production process and the final product which it is
delivering in the market. Innovation is a technique through which capacity of existing products is
increased by adding value and additional feature to the same. It helps an organization in growing
and increasing its overall capacity. Those products which are supported with new technology and
extra features has more capacity to attract the existing customers and this way the brand value of
the organization also gets increased (Bagchi-Sen, 2007). There are a number of ways through
which innovation is made possible like doing alteration, modification and changing the design of
the existing product. On a broad level it is found that employees get confused between
innovation and invention and consider them same terms. This is not true on real grounds. There
is a big difference in between the two terms. Innovation is a narrow term whereas invention is an
entirely different and big concept. According to the requirement and resource availability choice
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of any one of them can be done and expansion of business can be ensured. In order to better
understand the difference between both the concepts a comparative table is given below:
Basis Innovation Invention
Meaning It is an act of changing the
present product or commodity
by adding more feature to the
same.
Under the process of invention
an entirely new product is
introduce in the market which
is different from all the other
existing ones.
Works it helps in developing the
existing capacity of product
according to the application
and technology added to the
same.
Work at entirely new level can
be done using the new
invention.
Skills requirement Less skills are required in
order to bring innovation in
practice.
It is essential that a person
must have special and
technical skills as only than he
can ensure invention.
Investment In the process of
implementing innovation in an
organization less funds need to
be invested as no much cash is
required to bring change in the
existing products.
Contradict to innovation dong
invention is an expensive
technique as this need high
investment and more skilled
individual whom accordingly
needs to be given returns for
their efforts take.
The above comparison shows that there is a big difference in between both the concepts.
3com needs to ensure both on regular intervals so that it can do effective positioning of business
in market. It can use the innovative ideas to develop existing product quality and can raise its
brand value in market. If innovation is done than the organization may enjoy the following
benefits:
For organization
 Innovation will help in developing the capacity of organization
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