Innovation and Commercialisation at DCSL and Crunchbase Organisation

This assignment provides a comprehensive overview of innovation and commercialisation at DCSL and Crunchbase Organisation. It highlights the importance of organisational leadership, vision, teamwork, and culture in driving innovation and commercialisation. The 4Ps of innovation, innovation funnel, frugal innovation, commercial funnel, and New Product Development are also explained in detail. Practical examples from DCSL and Crunchbase Organisation illustrate how these concepts are applied in real-world scenarios.

INNOVATION AND COMMERCIALIZATION
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Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
Task 1:........................................................................................................................................3
P1. Explain innovation and determine its importance to organisations in comparison with the
invention.....................................................................................................................................3
P2: Explain how your organisational vision, leadership, culture and teamwork can shape
innovation and commercialisation.............................................................................................4
Task 2:........................................................................................................................................5
P3: Explain the 4Ps of innovation and explain the use of the innovation funnel to examine
and shape innovative ideas.........................................................................................................5
P4: Explain developments in frugal innovation and provide examples of how it is used in an
organisational context................................................................................................................7
Task 3:........................................................................................................................................8
P5: Explain the importance of the commercial funnel and the application of New Product
Development (NPD) processing for commercialisation of innovation......................................8
P6: Build an Innovation Business Case in an organisation, including ways to access funding.9
Task 4:......................................................................................................................................11
P7: Evaluate the different tools that the organisations can use to develop, retain and protect
knowledge and intellectual property........................................................................................11
Conclusion:..............................................................................................................................11
References:...............................................................................................................................12
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Introduction:
The main object of this research is to find out the significance of Innovation and
Commercialisation. For maintaining customer retention as well as acquiring new customers
Innovation strategy can play a crucial role. To analyse this, the researcher has chosen two
different companies, which organisation mainly develops their business with maintaining
their retailer as well as customers. With the help of four different tasks, the researcher has
described this research paper successfully.
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Task 1:
P1. Explain innovation and determine its importance to organisations in comparison
with the invention
The term ‘Innovation’ is a confusing word as it has several meanings. Several experts have
defined Innovation in several ways. It incorporates the application of processes, products that
may have long been familiar however, the effects of which were underestimated, or probably
unrecognised. As opined by David Burks, a bestselling author, Innovation refers to ‘the
application of ideas that are novel and useful. Creativity, the ability to generate novel and
useful ideas, is the seed of innovation but unless it’s applied and scaled it’s still just an idea’.
As stated by Razzak (2015), commercialisation is used to convert knowledge, inventions and
ideas into a higher wealth for businesses, individuals and society. When something is created
or being introduced for the first time it is known as the invention. To gain the patent, an
invention has to be new, non-obvious and must have utility (Sengoku, 2015). In this context,
Abdul Razaket al. (2014) stated that if one wants to make an idea to be called invention, it
just requires being certified as workable. Innovation is an impoverished part of the invention.
When further improvements and changes are made on the invention or the product it is
known as innovation. As such, all innovations are inventions but all inventions are not
innovation.
Importance of Innovation- DCSL and Crunchbase Organisation are benefited in many ways
as a result of innovation. By implementing innovative approaches and techniques in the most
valuable way, firms can create competitive advantage. Innovation management is the
integration of management of innovation method and management of change. It includes
business process, product and organisational innovation (Martin, 2015).
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According to Chun et al. (2015), rapid innovation can be challenging for small businesses
including DCSL and Crunchbase Organisation, as it lacks funds to invest in research and
development for change or for creating entirely new products. Skill gap among the employees
for small business is increasing as the needs are changing rapidly. This might cause hindrance
to the growth of small businesses. Small businesses do face a lot of competition in the market
and for the establishment of their company. They have to cope up with the speed of
innovation in technology and IT.
P2: Explain how your organisational vision, leadership, culture and teamwork can
shape innovation and commercialisation
Innovation management is the integration of management of innovation method and
management of change. It includes business process, product and organisational innovation
(Castro, 2015). As stated by Castro (2016), organisational structure and implementation of
innovation culture are required to manage innovation successfully in DCSL and Crunchbase
Organisation. The difference between invention and innovation should be made clear to every
employee. Development of innovative vision, network, leadership and entrepreneurial teams
are much needed. The vision of the company must be in relation to its organisational culture.
All these factors together help in forming of innovation and commercialisation in the
workplace.
A vision must be created which is believable, desirable and challenging at the same time. It
gives access to gain employee trust and loyalty. Sharing ideas with the employees’ time to
time prepares them mentally to be ready for upcoming challenges. As intended by Chung
(2009), DCSL and Crunchbase Organisation share its ideas with its employees to keep them
updated providing new assignments and roles for an upcoming course of action. These steps
ensure that the employees are providing innovative solutions for upcoming issues and
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problems. All this possible when there is a leader who leads by example and makes the
workplace fun to work. Therefore, DCSL and Crunchbase Organisation leaders update their
staffs regarding their goals for the company and depend on them to get it done.
An entrepreneurial team is defined as a team who adds creativity to the company problems
and looks after the issues coming as a hurdle for growth. As directed by Thompson (2014), an
entrepreneurial team is a set of individuals with similar skill set responsible for achieving
goals set by the company leaders, remove all obstacle coming in the way. The main purpose
of the team is to make decisions, lead the course of action, manage internal and external
conflicts and increase profitability. The employees at DCSL and Crunchbase must have
shared objective and commitment to gain the trust of the Investors. Creating an innovation
network is very important for shaping commercialisation and innovation successfully within
DCSL and Crunchbase Organisation. This relationship will frown gradually and will require
all available resources to do so.
Task 2:
P3: Explain the 4Ps of innovation and explain the use of the innovation funnel to
examine and shape innovative ideas
Innovation works as a model under 4Ps. The 4Ps was designed as a tool, which enables
businesses to predict the innovation process. As opined by Lee (2010), the 4Ps has made
improvement in businesses possible and very easy. The 4Ps consists of Product, Paradigm,
Process and Position. These 4Ps helps businesses to innovate their business. This is done for
the improvement of the business. The 4Ps can be elaborated as:-
Product- The first P stands for Product where the businesses start to think how to innovate
and improve their product. One of the important things that should be discussed in team
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meetings is what should be done to improve the product or service? What should be done to
make the product better? How can the prices be reduced? What should be done to make the
product more attractive to the customers? These are the several questions that should be kept
in mind. A good product helps a company to benefit and increase its profits.
Paradigm- This involves the way in which one does his/her business. Changes are made for
the better. The changes can be to improve the existing or the previous method but it should be
for the better. Various methods should be worked out to help the company to gain maximum
profits.
Process- There are several processes in which businesses are done. Starting from the
manufacturing of the company to the selling of the product will every stage has a definite
process. As intended by Nambusan (2015),even hiring and during of employees follows a
particular process. This is done by the companies to achieve its ultimate objective or goal.
The company follows the latest trends for its profit maximisation.
Position- The final P stands for Position. A position is usually compared to that of marketing
thought they are different. A position is having one's own opinion or perception about
something. It is the people's or the customer's perception which determine the position of a
company. This is where a company usually stands. This is important for the company to
achieve its place in the competitive market.
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Figure: 4Ps concept of innovation
(Source: Trott, 2014)
For the development of a product, various steps have to come together for the final product to
be successful. A tool known as innovation funnel describes this whole process.
It involves three important steps-
The first step aims at increasing the information and knowledge of the organisation. Here the
primary motive is to collect information. As directed by Daniel (2016), information is
collected in various ways. This can be done by speaking with competitors, learned people,
having group discussions and by simply speaking with people. Customers views and opinions
about the market and business are always useful and excellent information for the companies.
The second step involves the screening of ideas which has already been gathered from the
first step. This screening process helps the companies to ensure whether it will help them to
achieve the goal of their own. As directed by Jake (2017),the views are also examined to
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ProductPositionProcessParadigm

gather an opinion of the people and the customers about the market. It is also useful and
benefiting for the companies to know about the customers' expectations and the roles
expected from them by the people. Thus, screening is always helpful.
The third step looks that the ideas that are selected are good enough that it should benefit
both the company as well as its customers. As opined by Brad (2007), the ideas should be
such that it should line up with the goal of the organisation that was determined primarily.
The ideas should benefit the company as well as the customers. After all these steps have
been completed, the product is finally released in the market at this stage.
P4: Explain developments in frugal innovation and provide examples of how it is used
in an organisational context
Frugal innovation refers to reducing the complex nature of production and as such reducing
the cost of raw materials and the cost of overall production. It tries to make product least
costly. As directed by Sammy (2018), it generally tries to lower the price of a product
especially reducing the price of luxury items. In frugal innovation through the profit reduces,
the sell increases at a high rate. This in turn reduces the profit gap.
Many leading universities in the world are taught frugal innovation as a part of their
curriculum as it has a significant impact on the present day market.
Frugal innovation can be better understood by the following case studies:
A case study of DCSL Organisation, which is software development, based in the UK. They
generally provide the business solution for a living. Their main job is to develop websites and
software as per the requirement of the client. It is not a big firm, so it mainly recruits
energetic and committed employees who are ready to work hard and innovate their way out
of hurdles.
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Crunchbase Company designs websites and WebPages according to the requirement of the
individual. Many small-scale organisations use their cloud computing to store their data on
their servers (Thompson, 2014). As per the subject of the research both the organisations are
very much relevant to fit in this report. Innovation always has customers it be old or new
(Crunchbase.com. 2018).
Task 3:
P5: Explain the importance of the commercial funnel and the application of New
Product Development (NPD) processing for commercialisation of innovation
After a product has been made, it should have a successful purchase. The process of coming
in the notice of the successful purchase of a product by a customer is known as the retail
funnel. As opined by Kotler (2016),this retail funnel is necessary for a product to be sold
properly and at a good rate. The retail funnel is a systematic process and it has the following
key components-
Awareness- For the successful selling of a particular product it should be made aware to the
people. A consumer should be aware of the benefits of consuming a product. He should be
made aware of the advantages and disadvantages of the consumption of a product. As stated
by Hardy (2011), once a strong impression has been created in the minds of the customers,
selling the product becomes easy. Therefore, the first impression should be very strong as it is
often said that ‘the first impression is the last impression’. There are various methods of
making a good first impression of social media marketing, paid searches, blogging,
traditional advertising is most commonly used. The awareness should be made to the
customers based on the usefulness and price of the product.
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Discovery- the marketing team of the company does this part. Here the marketing team
convinces the customers to buy its product. For that reason, it tries to gain customer's
attention towards the product. This is the most important part for any organisation because
the consumer is already aware with the product and it is useful. As stated by Razak (2012), if
the consumers continue to buy the product, automatically the company will benefit. The
marketing team should look into it that the customer must not lose his interest. Most
companies usually do invest a lot in this step because if the customer is satisfied with the
product, the will continue buying the product. The marketing team keeps on motivating the
customers to buy the products.
Purchase- This is a very important step where the customer actually decides whether to buy
the product or not. If the customer decides to go for the product, the company has to do its
best to satisfy the customer. It has to prove to the customer about its product being genuine
and its usefulness. This step mainly involves the company giving demos about the product to
its customers, giving trial offers, discount rates, etc.
Figure: commercial funnel
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PurchaseAwarenessDiscovery

(Source: Lee, 2010)
P6: Build an Innovation Business Case in an organisation, including ways to access
funding
Planning, research and a good marketing team are the three important factors required for
developing an Innovation business care for DCSL and Crunchbase Organisation. Consumers’
satisfaction is very important and every product should satisfy the needs of the consumers. As
opined by Kotler (2015), the present day scenario demands satisfaction of the consumers on
different levels of quality, function and price. For achieving this, it follows the following
steps :-
Purpose- First come to the purpose of why a product should be made. For this, the most
important reason for launching a new product is for profit. As suggested by Thompson
(2014), every organisation aims at expanding its own business and for maximisation of
profits. As such, every organisation aims to create new products using new technologies to
maximise profits. Then sell off the product increases, the company automatically expand its
business.
Stages- The product should be such that it must satisfy the needs of the customers. When a
customer is satisfied with the product the sell automatically increases. The price of the
product should be such that it can compete with other products in the market and on the other
hand, it helps the producer to maximise profits.
Post-event- After the product has been launched, it needs to be sold as well. For this reason,
advertising and promotional campaigns are very necessary. This should be done to create
awareness among consumers for buying the product (Foss, 2015).
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Considerations- The new product should be in line with the brand values and old customers’
demands. If the existing customers are not satisfied with the product, they will stop buying
the product.
Pitfall- When a product is being advertised, it creates hopes among its customers. False
advertising should not be done, as the customers will be expecting something and failing to
fulfil that will cause consumer dissatisfaction. This will automatically lead to the loss of the
sell of the product.
The various methods of acquiring funds are:-
Bootstrapping:-The oldest method of receiving funds is bootstrapping. The members of the
company require skill and labour. In this process, the members of the company complete the
work or job that is undertaken by them. Some of the examples are-
 Online content writing
 Freelance designer
 Online merchandise establishment during initial stages
 Social media marketing and networking
Crowd Funding - This is the second method of collecting funds where there is a specific set
of websites, which provide the platform like Kickstarter, GoFundMe, or Indiego for receiving
funds. The sites mostly do the work and the work of the company is mainly to marketing and
promoting its products. This process is of the real advantage as the customers are already
available in the process through the platforms.
Angel Investors- Angel investors are a group of people who are already experienced in the
field. These groups of people have their own business and helping other people to see their
business. As opined by (Lee, 2010), people usually go to such people for seeking help when
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they are done with their family, relatives and friends but finding an angel investor is an easy
task. Angel investors look into those people with whom they can have their interest and can
gain benefit. Once a person approaches an angel investor, the person gets much help in terms
of financial help and advice. An angel investor invests very carefully owing to individual
own personal interests because no one would want individual money to go to waste.
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Task 4:
P7: Evaluate the different tools that the organisations can use to develop, retain and
protect knowledge and intellectual property
Tools related with Business Development: LinkedIn is the most powerful tool to expand
and grow awareness of a product in the professional market. With a database of 300 million
and existing customers from over 200 countries, it is the world’s largest professional network
(Sengoku, 2015). It highlights present skills or previous works. LinkedIn is the most
interactive professional network site.
Tools related with Customer retention: Customer relationship management is the biggest
tool to expand and grow a business. It can be as simple as keeping an automated reply to
emails or setting up the meeting with high-value clients to keep up with their ideas and
expectations for the company (Dcslsoftware.com. 2018). It cuts the cost factor, improvements
in certain aspects like the streamlined, simple and automated business. Having automation
capabilities to contact management system and customer relationship management system
makes a great impact.
Tools related with Protect knowledge and intellectual property: Various tools are indeed
required by any company to grow and develop its fame. There are various tools, which DCSL
and Crunchbase Organisation uses to develop its intellectual property. This is mostly by three
ways by the organisations. They are patents, trademarks and copyrights. A patent is where a
company protects its own invention from other existing inventions. Here the company tries to
keep its invention separate to that of other inventions. The second way that is done is by
using trademark. As intended by Chun (2015), Trademark is where the company assigns
particular signs, letters or words or some unique design to the product to identify their
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product. The trademark is the way by which they can identify their products from the other.
The third and the most important tool that companies use to develop its intellectual property
are copyright. It is where the companies copyrights their products or anything that solely
belongs to that company. It is done to protect the product from being used by any other
person and to prevent misuse of the product. This usually helps the company to protect and to
keep the product as their own and from other companies to take the name of the product. This
is even done to associate the name of the product with the companies' name and it is
maintained even if someone dies or even when the company resolves. Therefore, these are the
various important tools, which the companies use to develop its intellectual property. Besides
this, some other tools are used rarely.
Conclusion:
This piece of writing is a research, which aims to explain innovation and its significance to
workers of DCSL and Crunchbase Organisation. It also brings out how innovation is different
from that of the invention. It also contains how organisational leadership, vision, teamwork
and culture can form innovation and commercialisation. This helps the company to grow and
develop. It further goes on to explain what the 4Ps of innovation is. It also explains what
innovation funnel is and how it is used to develop the workers in DCSL and Crunchbase
Organisation. This article also explains about the frugal innovation-citing example of DCSL
and Crunchbase Organisation (Foss, 2015). How commercial funnel and New Product
Development used by the workers are also explained here. Plans to acquire funding are
illustrated in the development of Innovation Business Case for DCSL and Crunchbase
Organisation. The various tools used to create, retain and defend knowledge at DCSL and
Crunchbase Organisation are done with practical examples.
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References:
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Chun, D., 2015. “Industry of firm size and industry type on R&D efficiency throughout
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Crunchbase.com. (2018) Available at
https://www.crunchbase.com/search/organizations/field/organizations/location_identifiers/
london-england [Accessed 26 May 2018]
Dcslsoftware.com. (2018) Available at https://www.dcslsoftware.com [Accessed 26 May
2018]
Lee, S., 2010. Open Innovation in SMEs, An Intermediated Network Model27(8), pp.85-99.
Martín-de Castro, G., 2015. “Knowledge management and innovation in knowledge-based
and high-tech industrial markets: The role of openness and absorptive capacity”. Industrial
Marketing Management, 47, pp.143-146.
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Nambisan, S., Lyytinen, K., Majchrzak, A. and Song, M., 2017. “Digital innovation
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