Innovation and Intellectual Property Protection

This assignment delves into the crucial role of innovation in organizational growth. It examines how innovation provides a competitive edge, using examples like Virgin Group and Periscopix. The text discusses various innovation types (product, process, paradigm, and position), emphasizing the importance of commercializing innovations. Furthermore, it explores different tools for safeguarding intellectual property, such as utility models, copyright, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, and design protection.

INNOVATION
AND
COMMERCIALISATION

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
Innovation can be understood as a process to improve or make a significant change to a
existing product or service. Is is one of the most essential ingredient of a companies sustainable
growth and one of the most important task that needs to be followed in an organisation.
Companies like Virgin Group are the forerunners in innovation and have made significant
changes to their products from time to time. It helps companies to trade their products in a new
manner and these innovations are made according to the market and customer demand (Aarikka-
Stenroos, Sandberg and Lehtimäki 2014). Commercialisation can be understood as process of
managing business so as to earn profit from it. Periscopix deals in digital marketing area in UK.
This company is specialised in the business of Pay Per Click management, display and google
analytics services. It is UK's first certified firm and basically works for technology innovation.
This report showcases the importance of innovation and commercialisation in a business and
how product development can lead to attain customer satisfaction which helps them to provide
competitive edge over their competitors.
TASK 1
P1 Innovation and its importance in comparison to invention.
Innovation can be termed as a process to create something new in the existing product of
the company. This is a way to make changes as per the business requirement. Creativity is a
innovation. It can be understood as creation of new product or process that helps to shape
business into another way. Being from the field of designing ideas for digital marketing
Periscopix understands the role of innovation in making business successful. This can also be
understood by the fact that Virgin group has made regular changes to its products adding new
features so as to attract more customers and increase their market share.
Whereas invention can be understood as the term used for launching of products or
creation of process for the first time in the market (Abou-Ras, Kirchartz and Rau, 2011).
Invention process helps companies to expand its business in a totally new area. An invention
helps to achieve a completely different function that has uniqueness. Periscopix needs to
understand the importance of invention in increasing the market share and overall asset of the
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company. It includes process that is developed on paper tested through trial and errors in
experimenting and then presenting it to market.
It is important for any small business enterprises like periscopix to innovate new product
so as to increase there market share and hence can contribute to objectives of the firm (Boehm
and Hogan, 2013). Its important for companies market base to implement new software and
technology so as to provide efficient marketing strategy to their clients.
Importance of innovation can be understood by these following points:
 Competitive advantage: Innovation provides a whole lot of benefits among them
competitive advantage over their rivals. It helps company to perform well in the market
as it helps firms to attract more consumers towards their product.
 Establishing better methods of business: A company has number of ways to increase
their business and provide better product and services. Innovation provides assistance to
marketing function for the betterment of operational activities.
Innovation and invention are totally different thing but are interrelated with each other.
Innovation Invention
1) It is a process of making considerable
changes in the existing product or services.
2) It is addition to the existing product.
3) It can be linked with various product and
services at the same time (Bogers and West,
2012).
4) Marketing, tactical, technical and strategic
skills are required.
5) It is related to every function of an
organisation.
1)It is a process of bringing a whole new idea
into existence for the first time in the market.
2) It is creation of a whole in new product.
3) This is generally concerned with single
product or process.
4) Scientific skills are important for invention.
5) It is generally the work of Research and
development function.
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P2 Vision, leadership, culture and teamwork role in shaping innovation and commercialisation.
Innovation and commercialisation are the aspects that is necessary for any business.
Periscopix is a small business enterprise and they make considerable changes in their products
from time to time. Effective use of innovation can help company in achieving business
objectives easily. There are several factors like vision, leadership, culture and teamwork that
contributes to innovation and commercialisation.
 Vision: Without vision for the firm it is impossible for them to make new business ideas
that initiates the process of innovation. Vision decides as to how innovation and
commercialisation can be proceeded (Bradley, Hayter and Link, 2013). They go hand in
hand so as to achieve business objectives. This is important for the top ranked officials in
the organisation to understand and have clear vision for the goals of an firm.
 Leadership: Leaders are the decision makers in any organisation. It is important for
them to present an idea of innovation that can lead to product success. It is important for
them to give equal opportunity to each and every employee with right set of skills to give
innovative ideas as what happened in Virgin group. Leadership style creates environment
that makes way for new innovation whereas weak leadership can lead to slowing of the
process of innovation.
 Culture: One of the most underlined factor that underpins innovation and
commercialisation. Periscopix is a digital marketing and data source company hence it is
essential for the firm to add new technological features in their operations (Brunswicker,
and Van de Vrande, 2014). Comfortable cultural environment paces the speed of
innovation. Virgin group provides excellent working culture that supports innovation.
 Teamwork: Team work helps to make innovation process faster. It is important for
organisation to use their man power in a efficient way and this can be ensured by working
in team work. Working as a team help in making the change process easier for an
individual to adapt them. For target achievement coordination among the members is
necessary.
Innovation and commercialisation is the part and parcel of companies growth process. These
changes or innovation can be accepted on the wider scale if top management implement it
carefully. As we could see in the case of culture has encouraged innovative thinking and
commercialisation process. Style of leadership has made Virgin's innovation process faster and
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thus increasing the market share of the organisation. It can be seen through various examples of
Virgin group that innovation and commercialisation is always depending upon the leadership,
culture and teamwork at workplace. On the other hand vision helps to provide path way using
with innovation process needs to be followed. All the bigger organisations have all these factors
properly implemented in it.
TASK 2
P3 4P's of innovation and use of innovation funnel.
Innovation is required in each and every organisation irrespective of the sector it belongs
to. Small business enterprises like periscopix needs to implement innovation as a regular process
so as to increase the demand of companies products and services in the market (Datta,
Mukherjee and Jessup, 2015.). There are several innovation mix (4P's) that are required to make
the result more effective.
 Product: It is essential for the company to develop products on regular basis with some
additional features as per the market needs. This helps to provide better services to
customers as it helps to attain maximum customer satisfaction. Products are the end
results of the innovation process that is used for achieving organisational objectives. It is
important for the cited company to enlarge its product range using which they can expand
their market share. It has to make various other software that will fulfil the demands of its
clients.
 Process: For the proper implementation of innovation process must be specific. Various
process are taken by organisation for transforming idea or raw material into final product.
It is important for the company to have a quality process in order to produce upgraded
products into the market (Eesley, Hsu and Roberts, 2014). This cited company has
adopted many technological innovations like use of most advanced software in marketing
process to make its working effective. It is the effective process that helps in making
quality products. Multiple process can be used for different kinds of product innovation.
 Position: It is one of the most essential component of innovation. As where innovation
has to be done and for which market is essential for the product success. Innovation is
done according to the place in the market it wants to acquire. It is important for
Periscopix to check the perception of the market about them like what their clients,
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business partners or other stakeholders think about the organisations operational
activities. In today's world of globalisation it is more important to understand where
company stands than what products it offers.
 Paradigm: It refers to the change in a way something is done in an organisation.
Innovation is highly dependent on Paradigm. For example Periscopix sells its product in
number of ways from giving presentation to the clients to making effecting marketing
tool for them. These radical changes does not always accounts to better business.
Innovation funnel and its use:
It is a strategy used by the company in negotiating with the process of New product
development. There are several factors that are needed to be considered by marketing function
starting from product idea to testing to making output available to the users. Various uses of
innovation funnel are as follows:
 Opportunity assessment: It is assessed through market analysis of various data,
understanding of company's resources and available opportunity for the new product of
the company. It is important for the organisations to assess the opportunities which helps
them in growing on the path of success.
 Insights based ideation: Insight about market and customers helps company to identify
link between available opportunities and organisational strategies (Gibson and Naquin,
2011). This is done by conduction of survey to identify the aspects of market.
 Conceptualisation: By considering ideas of different stage actual concept is designed. It
includes different features of product development such as packaging mock-ups,
advertising copy etc.
 Evaluation and benchmarking: It is a stage where various concepts are tested. This
involves choice modelling and user testing. It evaluates and identifies areas where
organisation needs improvement. It is important for the organisations to evaluate the kind
of mechanism it is applying so that further bench marked process can be applied.
 Go/ No Go- This is a stage in which executives decides whether decides to go with the
product or do not go with the changes made in the product. This is done after doing
several testing so as to ensure product failure at later stages of business activity (Guo-
dong, 2011). Results of bench marking and evaluation of factors such as manufacturing
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cost etc. This decision is very important in any companies regards because any wrong
decision can result in heavy loses.
 Launch- This is the final stage where after completion of all the steps and considering of
all factors management decides to launch such product into the market. Here in this stage
raw materials have attended a form that can be used. In this stage the products are
launched in manner so that maximum profits out of it can be achieved. If not done
properly then the whole process can go in vain.
P4 Development in frugal innovation.
It is related to innovation in new business models, reconfigure value series and designing
of existing products so that it can be presented to the users who are unable to afford similar
products. It is a tool that is helpful in both innovation and invention. This concept is used by
companies to identify new idea for product development. This also helps in re innovating old
products by making several alterations. Periscopix adopted new innovation from market and
produced it in actuality.
Development in Frugal innovation:
 Market opportunities: Every organisation does market analysis so as to have idea about
the scope of product that has to be launched. Knowing market opportunity leads to
possibility of higher product and are grabbed by organisations (Hausman and Johnston,
2014). When ever Periscopix innovate its product it may be subjected to be under
pressure of failure if new market opportunities are not understood. There are several
market opportunities that are available for various companies and they all have to
properly utilise them by applying effective strategies.
 Resources: Every company has limited amount of resources especially with the small
business enterprises and should make optimum utilisation of resources by taking
necessary measures. It helps to provide customers with better options. These resources
needs to be properly utilised so that there future availability is also ensured.
 Innovation funnel: This process is adopted by company to make new product
development. It starts from idea and goes to product stage. Any change in the frugal
innovation has impact on innovation funnel as well.
It consists of two segments, first is associated with products and other concerns with problem
that has to be solved (Hossain, 2015). Periscopix uses this innovation that is affiliated to new
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technological based problem solving. Most important way to use this innovation to start with
solving issues and not with products. Some of the steps that can be used are:
 Generate idea for innovation.
 Screening of new ideas.
 Testing of idea.
 Internal analysis about resources and its effective usage.
 Market analysis to understand product scope in the market.
 Commercialization of product.
 Checking the performance of product.
TASK 3
P5 Importance of Commercial funnel and application of NPD for commercialisation.
One of the main aspect of using this funnel is to develop new product. To sell their
product and increasing their profitability importance of commercial funnel needs to be identified
by the firm. It is important for the company to make new innovations in product and services it is
offering so as to achieve better servicing to people. Commercial funnel helps company to surpass
all its rivals and become the leading company in the industry (Inauen and Schenker-Wicki,
2012). Periscopix uses various processes that are innovative so as to introduce their products and
services. Steps that are covered in NPD process are as follows:
 Generation of idea: It is important and basic process of innovation to generate ideas. So
that product can be developed in formatted manner and can be completed efficiently. It is
required to identify areas that can be effected.
 Screening of idea: It is important for company to chose the best idea among various
ideas available to them. It is important for achieving success as without it any plan can
failed.
 Development and testing: After selecting one idea it needs to be developed and then
testing is done so as to check whether the product developed is as per market demands or
not. These testing needs to be done using various measures and tools for decision making.
 Product development: After idea is developed and tested it is required to make products
accordingly as per consumer demands.
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 Market Testing: It is necessary to test the market that whether the product will attain
success or quality of product is in market demand or not. It can be done by releasing the
demo version of it and data can be gathered using the tools for decision making.
 Commercialisation: It has necessary for Periscopix to make profit out of its innovated
product (Rosenbusch, Brinckmann and Bausch, 2011). Appropriate planning, marketing
and pricing needs to be implemented so as to gain desired profit.
 Launch: When each and every stage is completed product is made available to the
consumers. Continuous monitoring of product is important so as to review the status of
any product in the market.
P6 Innovation business case and ways to access funding.
Business case is developed so that effective planning of business is made. Several factors
needs to be considered and it is important to identify these so that these cannot effect future
operations of company.
Mission Statement: It is organisations written declaration of objective and goals. It doesn't
change with time. Periscopix's mission statement considers:
 Essential factors of organisation.
 New product and services will be offered to which target market.
 Making direction for the whole company.
Proposal statement: This statement includes purpose and objectives of the organisation,
investigations that makes key information(Kim, et al., 2011). Basic information related to
product improvement and its benefits. Periscopix proposal statement suggests that the company
is planning to add new features and tools to its digital marketing design that will be used to for
the customer benefits.
Types Of innovation:
 Incremental: Additional features are includes with the old ones.
 Disruptive: New technologies added can be inferior to what was previously used.
 Architectural: To increase the market base there is re introduction of proven technology.
 Radical: It is associated with the revolutionary technology which gives rise to new
industry sometimes.
Periscopix implements incremental innovation in their product so as to add additional features in
the existing ones.
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Benefits of incremental innovation:
 No need to make alterations in existing features.
 It is a cost effective method as only costing is done in adding new technology (Lindič, et
al., 2011).
 It saves time.
 It helps company in adding the maximum value to the product.
 It increases the customer satisfaction as the changes are according to the previously
received data.
Measure the success of innovation
It is important for company to evaluate its existing product as to check success or failure
of them. Cited company uses most effective ways to evaluate its performance. Measure of
success is also important for understanding the market mood and develop future products
accordingly. Present performance is measured by making comparison with past.
Ways to fund new innovation
 Credit reserves with the company: It is one of the best form of funding new innovations
as we can see it in the case of . This allows company to make decision that is not very
much subjected to be under pressure of achieving success.
 Bank and financial institutions: Banks provide loans to the innovative project. The
amount of loan depends on the future history, market strength and revenue it has.
 Investors: There are few people who wants to invest some money into innovation projects
of the company (Schoeman, et al., 2012). By this they become shareholder of profit that
will be made by the company.
 Government: Certain government agencies also provides financial help some of the
innovative projects. This is sometimes done for public welfare so as to provide better
services to others.
Measures to check effectiveness
 Customers feedback.
 Analysis of market before implementing new innovations.
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TASK 4
P7 Tools to develop, retain and protect knowledge and intellectual property.
There are several tools and techniques that is used by the company to protect intellectual
property rights. This helps company to ensure earn and attract customers as the legal rights of
making money is with person or organisation that developed the product.
 Utility model: This models helps to protect inventions. It is patent rights but for short
period. It is second class patent and is used to protect inventions that can be duplicated by
other companies (Snow, et al., 2011).
 Copyright: This is done for those intellectual property which is in the form of written
documents, paintings etc. it provides right to owners as like right to reproduce, distribute
its copies, display it publicly and use it for making profit out of it.
 Trademark: It is special mark (symbol or design) that is used by the company so as to
authenticate its customers that product belongs to the same organisation. As use eaten as
its trademark sign. It cant be copied by other (Song, et al., 2016).
 Patent: It generally provides legal protection to the invention made by company.
Different types of patents are utility, design and plant patent. It is generally done by the
scientist and researcher for the products or projects that are highly innovative and has a
very new concept introduced in it. This is higher done by business firm so as to extract
maximum benefit out of their products.
 Trade secret and design: It is not associated with any written legal framework rather it
is concerned with business idea that company has developed so as to make product a
success. It is concerned with manufacturing and commercial secrets that can't be cheated
by other business. It can be saved by the measures taken by company itself.
CONCLUSION
Innovation and inventions are necessary for the growth of any organisation irrespective of
what is the size of an organisation. In this report it can be seen that innovation provides
competitive advantage over the company rivals, it is illustrated by the examples of and Virgin
group. Periscopix offers marketing services to others like PPC etc. and that helps company in
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providing effective services to their clients. There are various innovation mix like product,
process, paradigm and position that can be used by the cited company to make innovation
successful. It is important to commercialise the innovated product. These innovations can be
safeguarded by using various tools to save intellectual property.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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