Understanding Invention and Innovation

This assignment delves into the crucial distinction between invention and innovation. It examines the definitions, processes, and impacts of both concepts. The text provides insights from various scholarly sources, exploring how inventions are transformed into innovations that drive economic growth and societal change.

INNOVATION

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Importance of innovation to an organisation in comparison with invention.........................1
P2 Organisational vision, leadership, culture which shape innovation and commercialisation 2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
P3 4Ps of innovation and use of the innovation funnel to examine and shape innovative ideas 4
P4 Development of frugal innovation.........................................................................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................6
P5 Importance of the commercial funnel and the application of New Product Development....6
P6 Innovation business case for 4com company.........................................................................7
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................8
P7 Tools for retaining, developing and protecting intellectual property and knowledge...........8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
.......................................................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Business organisation understand that surviving in this high competitive and rapidly
changing business environment is not possible if company is not selling new product and
services. Enterprise have to modify their offers and make it better with time (Gambardella and
McGahan, 2011). Innovation is the process which is used by business entities for gaining
competitive advantage on the other players of the industry. Innovation basically means a process
where new idea, product or method is developed by making modification in present thought,
commodity or method. Commercialisation is known as running something with the motive of
earning financial benefits. ROLI is a music technology start-up who is known for their
innovative products like Seaboard. This assignment will discuss about advantages of innovation
and its comparison with invention. Vision of leader, culture of company are few things which
promote innovation will be included in this assignment. Innovation funnel, frugal innovation and
a business case will become part of this project. Few tools which save intellectual property of
company will come under this file.
TASK 1
P1 Importance of innovation to an organisation in comparison with invention
All the actions which are taken for making a new product, process or services is known
as innovation. Business organisation do not innovate a product or service without any reason,
always keep one thing in their mind that is commercialisation of goods and service. If they think
that they can get financial gain from innovation then only they focus on introducing it in market.
Commercialisation is a process where company launch a new product or facility in order to earn
money and become financial sound (Godin, 2012). ROLI is a London based start up who is
known for operating as music technology company. Less than 250 employees are working in this
firm and currently they do not have any physical branches. Currently, their turnover is less than
50 million pounds and but they are earning decent amount of profit every year. This company
has flat structure and they have successfully adopted role culture.
In business world, people think that innovation and invention is same think but in reality
it is very different (Difference Between Invention and Innovation, 2016). Below is difference
between both of them:
Innovation Invention
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Formation of new product or system by
altering it is innovation.
Making a new product or process which is
completely new for this world i.e. which people
has never seen is invention.
Innovation is done for motivating the
customer to buy something new. It is done for
increasing customer satisfaction.
Invention take place when company try to find
solution of a complicated problem.
The research which is required in innovation is
related to technique, need of customers and
competency.
Curiosity of the inventor is the main
requirement of invention. Financial assistance
and technical knowledge are other crucial needs
of invention (Huizingh, 2011).
Seaboard is the innovation which is done by
ROLI. It is considered as the future of
keyboard and music.
A machine which four vehicle, can carry four to
five person and can move with fast speed, i.e.
car was an invention which was done by Henry
Ford.
Virgin group allow their employees to take big risk and provide them all the resources
which are needed for entering in business or developing some new system of product. They keep
faith in their employees which can be considered as the prime reason that this company is present
in many industries. ROLI also give same liberty to their employees and allow to use company's
resource on making new products or improve features of present one. Significance of innovation
to the employees of ROLI is as follows:
 Workers learn new things when they try to develop something new. This increases their
knowledge and help them in attaining rapid career growth.
 When employees innovate something new then company provide them monetary
benefits and they promote them on new position.
 Innovation give extra edge to a company. When an organisation earn more then it result
in fast promotion and growth of employees who are working in it.
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P2 Organisational vision, leadership, culture which shape innovation and commercialisation
It is true that innovation is important for every business entity but doing innovation is not
easy. Their are few organisation who successfully launched innovative products because of
various reason like organisational leader, leadership etc. Below are few factors which promote
commercialisation and innovation:
Organisation vision – The reason behind huge success which Apple gained is this
organisation followed a single vision i.e. to sell people something which they have never thought
about. They believe in hard working and selling quality of products. ROLI also have a vision i.e.
to transform music industry and develop new musical instruments. This vision of company
motivate employees for using their creativity at the time of resolving a problem so company can
earn more money by commercialise their idea (Kim And et.al., 2011).
Leadership – Richard Branson, founder of Virgin group, has a unique leadership.
Normally people believe that Virgin group attain success because of democratic style, but
Richard Branson did not only gave few authorities to the manager, he gave them complete
freedom to run a business in own way. Leadership of ROLI also have to give same kind of
freedom to their employees if they want to see surprising result in less period of time.
Culture – Apple company has unique culture which is not followed by many
organisation. Normally an enterprise either prefer to work hard or focus on innovation. This
company concentrate on both things and they are running their organisation by following task
culture. ROLI also have similar kind of culture but they lack aggressiveness which is present in
the culture of Apple. If they will focus on this one area they can do more innovation and increase
their profits (Bogers and West, 2012).
Teamwork – Virgin Group is known for the team work which they are doing from a long
period of time. This company is operating in many sectors because every company of the group
help other one at and all the work happens in the team is done by forming different team. When
people work in team then executing and developing innovative ideas become easy for them.
ROLI should also make teams because few employees of company use their creativity at the time
of developing new product while others have talent to present the product in such a way that it
gin high commercial success.
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TASK 2
P3 4Ps of innovation and use of the innovation funnel to examine and shape innovative ideas
Their is a general perception that innovation is basically done by making new products
but this is not true (Lindič and et.al., 2011). Their are 4Ps of innovation which provide
information about what kind of innovations exist in this world. They are mentioned below:
Product – In this type of innovation, company make a new product which is different can
be known as an updated of the previous one or a comply new machine. This is the most popular
''P'' of innovation because every company is depend on it. The seaboard which is made by ROLI
is perfect example of ''product'' innovation. They made a new music instrument which has
attractive designing and more features.
Process – Every company has to opt various process in order to run their business in
effective way. ROLI is making their Seaboard by using automation process. They know that if
machine will make machine then many problems, like manage human resource, will
automatically get resolve. This company were earlier making instruments by using a semi-
automation process but then use some innovative ideas so their making modification in their
manufacturing process.
Position – When an organisation start selling same product in different segment by
repositioning it then it mean that they are using this position innovation. ROLI does not need to
innovative new product every-time, they can reposition their product and start its advertising it in
a new way. Re-branding can help company in earning more product, they just have to use
innovative ideas and position their product in different way.
Paradigm – Among all the ''P's' of innovation, this one has least popularity. It is related to
change in mindset. For example, Henry ford thought about making a machine which can travel
fast and people can sit in it so they can move fast instead of making a horse which has more legs.
Employees of ROLI also have to use their imagination and make something which people have
never thought about.
Innovation funnel is an important tool which companies use for executing their raw ideas
into real work. Their are three steps which is normally followed by all the companies who use
this funnel (Rafinejad, 2011). First is related to gathering all the ideas and for this, it is important
to involve more people so more thoughts can come on the table and management of company get
big pool of thoughts. Next step is to evaluate each and every idea because a company cannot
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work on every thought which they reached from employees experts or from other source. ROLI
is a SME and they cannot waste their resources on those ideas which do help them in growing
their business. In the last step, company implement the plan which they have made for chosen
idea. This is step has its own significance, it company fail to execute their ideas and plans then
there is no point that how innovative and commercially successful their idea is, they will end up
with huge loss. Virgin Group used innovation funnel in past and they are still using it for growth
of business.
P4 Development of frugal innovation
The concept of frugal innovation is getting popular in this world because it address some
key areas like reduction in the complexity, reduce cost of products and goods sold etc. Their are
many companies like mobile manufacturing firm, who use this innovation when they have to
remove unnecessary features from a mobile piece (Bagchi-Sen, 2011). They use it for
minimising cost of mobile phone so it can be sold in developing markets. People in developing
nation do not want best quality products, they seek required features at an affordable price.
Frugal innovation help company in doing this task in an effective manner. Below are six key
principles and development in frugal innovation:
Engage and iterate – Normally, companies keep their concentration on developing new
products, this principle of frugal innovation states that an organisation does not need to think
about something very different or unique (Schoonmaker and Carayannis, 2011). They can
improve their present innovation and offerings by focusing on better execution and making small
changing in complete process. Sometime company do not need to do a single thing, they just
have to do their work continuously and attain more market share. ROLI is known for innovative
products but in present scenario, this firm is using frugal innovation and instead of making too
much modifications in their products, they are only trying to make it popular by marketing it in a
better and effective way.
Flex your assets – Managing available resource equally importance compared to having
more resources. Their are many organisations who fail to succeed in business environment
because they fail to manage their financial resources. They did not know the correct way of
investing their retained earning and it hurt them in a bad way. ROLI is not making mistake of not
using their assets in proper way. ROLI is not a big MNC so they understand that if they will not
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use their limit money in best possible way then they may face a big financial crunch and face to
innovate new products and services in upcoming time (Snow And et.al., 2011).
Sustainable solution – ROLI is new business venture but this does not means that they
do not known the right way of doing business. The Seaboard made by this company is a
sustainable solution of various problems which was faced by keyboard players. This principle of
frugal innovation argues that identifying solution of a trouble is not big thing until the solution is
sustainable i.e. remove root cause of issue.
Shape behaviour of buyers – A product cannot be sold at low cost, without comprising
its quality, if company do not understand the nature of customers. ROLI believe that they
understand the attitude and trend. They are continuously making changes in thei9r services and
products after they receive some ideas or complain from the side of customers.
Create value for customer – ROLI can convert from a SME to a big musical technology
start-up if they focus on this principle of frugal innovation i.e. give value for money. They are
manufacturing innovative products and aggressively doing innovation in other areas of music but
at the same time they are making sure that they regularly have a chat with buyers so they can
make rapid changes in their products and services.
Innovative stakeholders – Their are many big corporation who tasted success in their
business because their stakeholders were innovative. They gave right advice and creative ideas to
the firm so they can improve their products and other offerings accordingly. ROLI is launching
many unique products and improving their services because they have stakeholders who assist
them in promoting aggressive innovation.
TASK 3
P5 Importance of the commercial funnel and the application of New Product Development
Commercial funnel is considered as one of the most important tool which many business
entities are utilising. It concentrate on developing and executing those ideas which are
commercially successful and assist company in earning lot of money(Teece, 2011). Innovation is
useless for a business organisation until they get assurance that it is commercially successful:
Improve quality – When a company make a product by considering its financial success
and failure then they prefer to develop product with great quality because they know that if they
will comprise in terms of quality then they will fail to convince customers for buying it.
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Promote creativity – Doing innovation which should also be commercially beneficial to
the company require more than just a creative mind. When employees try to do this kind of
activity then they it develops a positive culture in the organisation.
Growth of business and increment in efficiency – Commercial funnel assist an
organisation in developing business plan and ideas which ultimately results in financial growth
of the company. Efficiency of workers and organisation also increases when they use
commercial funnel in the organisation.
Developing a new product contain various steps which are as follows:
Idea generation – Bringing a thought in mind is known as generation of idea. ROLI has to
develop a new mobile application which can teach people about how to use their Seaboard.
Idea screening – ROLI has to explore various option about how they develop an attractive
application and what features they can put in it as they have limit option and they cannot use
ideas and suggestions of all the employees and experts (Thore, 2012).
Testing and development – After choosing few features and services which can be installed in
mobile application, ROLI has to test their mobile application so they can remove flaws which are
present in it and improve product accordingly.
Product development – At this stage, company has to start developing all the features at mass
level so they can make mobile application according to the need of different users.
Commercialisation – Company has to use promotion tools in this step so they can motivate
buyers and convince them for downloading and using this application. In present business
scenario, advertising is crucial part for assuring that product become financially successful.
Launching – Launch mobile application on IOS and android is the last step of new product
development. Company can launch their application by organising an event.
P6 Innovation business case for 4com company
Business case is justification of how a company can earn benefits from an idea (Walsh,
2012). Below is business case of ROLI:
Executive summary – This company is operating in music technology industry and they want to
innovative new musical instrument and other services which can bring revolution in the industry.
Target – They want their Seaboard to become one of the most popular musical instrument and
they want to replace keyboard through its aggressive sale.
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Solution – They have make and improve Seaboard so in such a way that people can use it with
facing the problem of ''hard to operate''.
Why product is innovative – It is innovative because it has more features and its voice is very
different. Its surface is touch response which is a very unique feature.
Customer research – Company has to organise a research so they can find review on their
products and make necessary amendments in Seaboard. Besides musicians, curiosity of people
can also play crucial role in high sale of this product.
Funding – Angel investors will be the right source of funding. They like to invest in new ideas
and they can provide any amount which is asked by promoters.
Expected benefits – This step provide details about how much amount can company earn in
upcoming time.
TASK 4
P7 Tools for retaining, developing and protecting intellectual property and knowledge
Doing innovation is important for every business entity but at the same time they have to
make sure that their unique features, ideas etc. is not stolen or copied by some other company
because it will result in huge loss to the company (Wonglimpiyarat,2011). Below are few tools
which can be used by ROLI for saving their innovation and avoid any legal trouble:
Patent – It provide an exclusive right of using a product. ROLI can take patent for their
Seaboard and if they want to sell their patent rights then they can charge money against it. If they
will get patent for this product then it will allow them to sue any other company who is making
similar instrument and selling it by same name. Seaboard is a new idea and patent is an effective
tool for saving this idea from getting copied.
Trademark – It is a sign which shows that particular product belong to a firm who has
trademark which is present on the product or its packet. It is a useful tool which will allow
customer to differentiate product of ROLI from others. Protecting intellectual property is
important for ROLI because they are a small firm and trademark can play crucial role in granting
the rights which are required at the time of infringement lawsuit.
Copyright – This is legal right which is given to the innovator of the product against legal
fees. ROLI can get copyright on some of their products. Seaboard is an original work and
copyright is a tool which is used by companies for letting people know that the product which
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they are selling in the market is their ''original work''. If company want allow someone the use of
copyright then they can charge some fee against it. They will result in a legal transaction which
is helpful in avoiding legal trouble.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that innovation, commercial and frugal funnel
is used by a company so they can make a product which assist them in earning more market
share. Patent, trademark are few tools which save exclusive rights which a company has on their
products and services.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Aarikka-Stenroos, L. and Sandberg, B., 2012. From new-product development to
commercialization through networks. Journal of Business Research. 65(2). pp.198-206.
Bagchi-Sen, S., 2011. Strategic considerations for innovation and commercialization in the US
biotechnology sector. European Planning Studies. 15(6). pp.753-766.
Bogers, M. and West, J., 2011. Contrasting innovation creation and commercialization within
open, user and cumulative innovation.
Bogers, M. and West, J., 2012. Managing distributed innovation: Strategic utilization of open
and user innovation. Creativity and innovation management. 21(1). pp.61-75.
Ettlie, J.E. and Rosenthal, S. R., 2012. Service innovation in manufacturing. Journal of Service
Management. 23(3). pp.440-454.
Gambardella, A. and McGahan, A. M., 2011. Business-model innovation: General purpose
technologies and their implications for industry structure. Long range planning. 43(2).
pp.262-271.
Godin, B., 2012. “Innovation Studies”: The Invention of a Specialty. Minerva, 50(4). pp.397-421.
Huizingh, E.K., 2011. Open innovation: State of the art and future perspectives. Technovation.
31(1). pp.2-9.
Kim, S. K. And et.al., 2011. The effect of R&D, technology commercialization capabilities and
innovation performance. Technological and Economic Development of Economy. (4).
pp.563-578.
Lindič, J., and et.al., 2011. Deploying information technologies for organizational innovation:
Lessons from case studies. International Journal of Information Management. 31(2).
pp.183-188.
Rafinejad, D., 2011. Innovation, product development and commercialization: Case studies and
key practices for market leadership. J. Ross Publishing.
Schoonmaker, M. G. and Carayannis, E. G., 2011. Assessing the value of regional innovation
networks. Journal of the Knowledge Economy. 1(1). pp.48-66.
Snow, C. C. And et.al., 2011. Organizing continuous product development and
commercialization: the collaborative community of firms model. Journal of Product
Innovation Management. 28(1). pp.3-16.
Teece, D. J., 2011. Business models, business strategy and innovation. Long range planning.
43(2). pp.172-194.
Thore, S. A. ed., 2012. Technology commercialization: DEA and related analytical methods for
evaluating the use and implementation of technical innovation. Springer Science &
Business Media.
Walsh, P. R., 2012. Innovation nirvana or innovation wasteland? Identifying commercialization
strategies for small and medium renewable energy enterprises. Technovation. 32(1).
pp.32-42.
Wonglimpiyarat, J., 2011. Commercialization strategies of technology: lessons from Silicon
Valley. The Journal of Technology Transfer. 35(2). pp.225-236.
Online
Difference Between Invention and Innovation. 2016. [online]. Available
through:<http://keydifferences.com/difference-between-invention-and-innovation.html>.
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