Innovation and Commercialisation

This assignment focuses on the importance of innovation and commercialisation in organizations. It discusses the difference between invention and innovation, explores different types of innovation, and the process required to commercialise innovation. It also covers the 4Ps of innovation, the use of the innovation funnel, the significance of the commercial funnel, and the application of new product development for commercialisation. Additionally, it provides insights into tools for developing, retaining, and protecting knowledge and intellectual property.

INNOVATION AND
COMMERCIALISATION
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO 1 Context for innovation and difference between invention and innovation............................1
LO 2 Different types of innovation.................................................................................................3
LO 3 Process required to commercialise innovation.......................................................................5
LO 4 Range of methods for protecting ideas and understand their advantages and disadvantages 9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
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INTRODUCTION
Innovation can be defined as a path of developing, visualizing and executing new ideas into
existing products or services. Innovation is a sub process of commercialization.
Commercialization can be defined as a process of introducing new products or production
methods into commerce into the market. Both innovation and commercialization are important
for organizations to be focused on because it helps their business to grow (Tanev, Rasmussen
and Zijdemans, 2015). Organizations today most of the time focus on observing current market
situation, requirements of their customers or changes that they want to make in order to innovate
something new or for upgrading their current products and services. For this each organization
has their own innovation manager whose main role is to focus on generating new ideas for
bringing improvement within their current offerings or commercialization of their new products.
This assignment will focus on ASUS organization which is an electronic organization founded in
1989. They mainly sell products such as desktops, laptops, mobiles, netbook’s, projectors,
monitors, graphic card etc. This assignment will lay emphasis on importance of innovation to
organizations in comparison with invention, ways in which organisational vision, leadership,
culture and teamwork can shape innovation and commercialization, 4Ps of innovation, use of the
innovation funnel to examine and shape innovative ideas, developments in frugal innovation,
importance of the commercial funnel and the application of new product development (NPD)
processing for commercialisation of innovation, innovation business case and e different tools
that organisations can use to develop, retain and protect knowledge and intellectual property.
LO 1 Context for innovation and difference between invention and innovation
Innovation in modern language can be defined as new idea, imagination or creative thoughts
in form of a device or a method. It can also be defined as an appropriate or better solution that
meet new requirements or any kind of unarticulated needs or existing market needs (Rasmussen
and Eliason, 2017).
There is a huge difference between invention and innovation. Invention is creation of a
product or introduction of new product for the first time whereas innovation is to improve or
make significant changes within an existing product, service or process. It is important to
continuously innovate something new as it helps the organizations to move forward with the
increasing competition. Innovation is extremely important for an organization as compared to
invention. Innovation is one of the main and important contribution in the growth of the
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organization whereas invention is simply a proof of credibility of significant knowledge.
Innovation helps in attracting best talent to bring new expected results whereas invention is to
have completely new and unexpected results. Innovation requires skilled and talented people so
that they can actively participate within organization in order to deliver appropriate results even
invention requires talented and skilful people with lots of knowledge as only then they can invent
something new. In fact, invention is said to be a building block for innovation. Innovation helps
an organization to bring continuous improvement within the organization (Dutta and Folta,
2016). Many organizations today are focusing on innovating something new for their customers
and especially in technological sectors. So, organizations like ASUS need to focus on innovating
something new in order to move forward in this industry competition so that they can gain
competitive advantage.
If a company wants to be on top and become successful then they need to have clear and
concise mission, goals and company values as these elements helps and organization like ASUS
to guide their team or employees. But vision of the company is one of the most important things
as it leads the organization towards commercialization. ASUS is an electronic company whose
main vision is to be an integrated 3C solution provider of communication, computers, consumer
electronics that delivers innovation in order to simplify their consumer’s lives and also helps then
to release their full and complete potential. Leadership is also important to shape innovation
because a good and efficient leader helps in building an effective team. An affective leader will
not only have adequate and required skills but will be willing to adopt all kinds changes and
maintain coordination within their team members and work in a proper manner. This increases
importance of proper leadership as it eventually helps in increasing efficiency of team work
within it extremely important for success of an organization ( Fini and et.al., 2018). Other than
this proper and appropriate organizational culture helps in making employees of an organization
work and fulfil their responsibilities. Positive organizational culture also helps in increasing
efficiency of their employees which further leads to commercialization. It is also known that
team work breeds innovation and if it is integrated with strategic efforts of an organization and
its vision then it can lead the company towards commercialization.
Sources of innovation
There are few main sources of innovation that can benefit ASUS in many ways.
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 Market is one of the most Unexpected sources of innovation where organizations For
example: ASUS can search for new opportunities of growth so that they can use it for
development of new and innovative products like PDA’s.
 Another source is incongruities in which organizations can do proper appropriate research,
determine what their actual target customers want and then chose the identified need as a
source of innovation. ASUS can identify their customers’ needs and then use it as a benefit
for innovation. For example: nowadays customers are focusing more on devices whose
battery can last much longer and are available in much lower prices.
 Change in market is another source of innovation that can benefit ASUS. One of the most
common examples of this deregulation.
 There are many other sources of innovation both these are the main sources which can lead
ASUS towards innovation.
Development of innovation
There are few steps that can help the organization to foster and develop an culture and
environment of innovation.
 Lead from the front: Innovation simply starts from leadership qualities of the leaders as
leaders need to be passionate about their work, should think forward and embrace all changes
(Liu, 2016). This helps the employees to focus more on their work and think innovatively
and generate more innovative ideas.
 Creation of innovative culture: leaders should inspire and encourage their subordinates or
employees so that they start to think out of the box and for this all the employees need to feel
independent enough so that they can think innovatively. However, if leaders do not support
their subordinates or demotivates them then this innovative culture cannot be created.
 Building effective teams: All the requirements should be identified and based on those
requirements an effective and efficient team should be developed this includes team members
dependency, objective clarity, effective structure.
 Reward failure: One of the most important steps is to reward employees where employee’s
creativity as well as innovative thinking is rewarded and appreciated even if they fail
(Henttonen and Lehtimäki, 2017).
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Take ownership of client problems: next step to encourage staff members to take ownership of
their customer’s or clients problem, this will help the organization in highlighting areas that are
required to be improved which will further lead to innovation.
Flat management structure: it has been observed that most of the time organizations with proper
flat management structure enable communication opportunities and encourage confidence.
LO 2 Different types of innovation
4P’s of innovation
There are four P’s of innovation which helps an organization to focus on areas where
innovation can be done. These 4 P’s are: product, process, position and paradigm. ASUS is a
hardware and electronics manufacturer who also need to analyse and focus on 4P’s of innovation
before launching their products or services.
 Product: product innovation helps in improving or introducing a service or a product where a
change is brought within the current product or service according to the customers. It is one
of the main types of innovation which is focused by most of the organization. In fact, most of
the innovation comes under the category of product innovation only (Febriani and Djatna,
2016). ASUS always introduces new and latest models of their products which further helps
them in bringing innovation within their products and services.
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 Process: Process innovation mainly focuses on processes that helps an organization
delivering or creating products. The main focus of this innovation is to focus on the ways
existing products are used in the rapidly changing settings. Process innovation helps in
bringing change in the process through which innovation is done. Year by year ASUS
introduces new products and services to the market. In order to introduce such products year
by year they always try to bring changes within their development process.
 Position: Position innovation focuses on repositioning an established process or product
perception in an specific area or context. This type of innovation focuses on the way specific
process or product is perceived symbolically and way in which they are used by the
customer’s or clients.
 Paradigm: it focuses on defining or redefining paradigms of an organization or entire sector
that are dominant. These innovation helps in shaping the business or organization on the
thing which they focus on.
Innovation funnel to examine and shape innovative ideas
Innovation funnel can be defined as a mechanism that helps in enabling a constant ideas
stream that can be used for screening viability. It is one of the most popular approach that can be
used by the organizations to create innovation and also enables them to work on realistic action
plan. It focuses on generating as many ideas as possible so that it can be refined and converted
into development plans. It is like a funnel where at the starting lots of ideas are generated and at
the end only best idea is kept. It is one of the best possible way in which ideas can be prioritized
so that the best idea can be worked on and can be developed in a best possible manner in order to
be launched (Yu, 2018). ASUS conducts a market research as well which helps them to
understand their competitors and their products so that they can focus on new developmental
approaches that can be used by them in idea generation.
Idea that takes loads of potential customers and which can qualify organization’s deal and
for this brainstorming of ideas is dome so that a new, effective and profitable idea can be
extracted and developed into a new product. Innovation funnel plays a vital role in examining
and shaping innovative ideas as all the ideas that are generated are first of all examined and
brainstormed so that effectivity and feasibility of all the ideas can be done. Examination of ideas
helps in filtering and narrowing down the funnel where all the good ideas are kept and examined.
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After this all the ideas are studied and the best out of all is selected that can be tuned with
organization’s vision and objectives. This concept can be applied to ASUS as it is a
technological company it is important for them to focus on innovating something new. Using
innovation funnel concept various new ideas can be generated that can be used by ASUS for
innovation. This innovation funnel concept will also help ASUS to select one of the best ideas
that can be tuned with their objective, attract new customers and can also help them to gain
profitability. This will also help ASUS to maintain their developmental process. Innovation
should not only be seen as a new outcome but it should also be seen as a process. Innovation is
mostly misunderstood by organizations or people (Datta, Mukherjee and Jessup, 2015). It is a
process or mindset which helps in achieving an outcome that would be profitable for the
organization.
Frugal innovation is a process through which complexity and cost of the products or services
can be reduced. It helps in removing all kinds of non-essential requirements so that product or
service is more durable. There has been various development in frugal innovation that can be
used within organizations. It can help ASUS to increase their sustainability and growth. It helps
organizations like ASUS to respond to their limitations in a better manner. So that these
limitations do not work as barriers in innovation ideas and practical solution. As ASUS is an
technological organizations so frugal innovation plays a vital role in ASUS as there are various
kinds of barriers or limitations that can work as a barrier for ASUS for innovative ideas and
solutions. With the help of this frugal innovation concept ASUS can work on their products or
services and identity all the limitations or constraints and focus on reducing them in an
appropriate manner.
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ASUS focuses on generating ideas or technologies that can help them in improving their
products and services helps them in developing innovation within their organization. Bu working
on their culture and concepts that are used to develop products and save time as positive working
culture helps an organization to increase their employee’s efficiency which further helps them in
embedding innovation within their organization. ASUS measures innovation with the help of
various points such as: calculating number of active projects, calculating number of ideas
submitted by employees, calculating R&D budget and percentage of sales. This helps them to
calculate Innovation sales rate which further helps ASUS to measure innovation within their
organization.
LO 3 Process required to commercialise innovation.
Commercial funnel importance
Commercial funnel is also known as sales funnel. It mainly focuses on process which helps
organizations in generating additional or more leads and attract more customers towards
organization’s products or services (Stenard, Thursby and Fuller, 2016). Commercial funnel
consists of few steps which help organizations in attracting more customers for the success and
growth of the organization. Four steps of commercial funnel are: Attract, convert, close and
delight.
Attract: in this step all the sources through which customers, clients or investors can be attracted
are maintained. It is mostly done by reviewing customer’s feedback, investigating online
available content etc.
Convert: At this step all unknown visitors are converted into known customers. It can be done by
online offers, discounts, advertisements etc.
Close: Above step helps the organizations to identify leads by measuring activities of their
customers. If the leads can lead to growth of the company then the identified lead is closed.
Delight: At this step satisfaction level of customers is measured (Carayannis, Cherepovitsyn and
Ilinova, 2016). Based on this proper and appropriate service is provided to the customers which
further helps them to increase their customer satisfaction, attract new customers and increase
their products or service demand.
This process is important for commercialization of innovation as with the help of this
process organizations will be able to identify their customer’s needs, decries and demand and
based on this new leads or ideas will be generated.
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Importance of new product development process
NPD can be defined as a process through which important methods are identified that
plays a vital role in launching new product of service. This process helps the organizations to
increase their sales and gain competitive advantage. NPD process consist of few stages such as:
Idea generation, Concept definition, market analysis, product development and
commercialization.
Idea generation: It is one of the most important step of NPD process as in order to develop a new
product it is important to generate new idea by analysing market demand and needs. For this
organization’s current customer’s needs, demand and desired are analysed so that new idea can
be generated. ASUS produces products according to their customer’s uses, needs and current
market demand.
Concept definition: In this step products specification is demonstrated to their customer’s like
ASUS does, they display their products with its specification on their portals so that their
customers can understand how their product is different from other products.
Market analysis: In this step market analysis is done as it is important to analyse market before
introducing any new product (Hossain and Kauranen, 2016). Here market condition and demands
are analysed this helps the organizations to increase success ration of their product after
launching.
Product development: Based on the market analysis product is designed and developed. It helps
the organizations like ASUS to understand their customers needs and design the product in such
a manner that customers get attracted towards it.
Commercialization: In this step, product is exhibited into the market for commercialization. It is
done only after testing, and checking the quality of the product. Then it is launched into the
market for their customers.
This NPD processing is important and help in commercialization of innovations as
market analysis helps the organizations to identify their customers needs, flaws in current
product or changes that can be made in new product (Kuratko and Hoskinson, 2016). So, it can
be said that it helps in commercialization of innovation.
Innovation business case
Organizations should identify and enlist their requirements so that they can work in an easy
and efficient manner which will further help in development of innovation business case. This
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will help the organizations to understand and analyse their products and service that they offer to
their customers, measure their own performance and based on this develop future task ideas
(Bashmakov and et.al., 2015). ASUS is a multinational phone and computer hardware and an
electronic company that develops various products such as laptops, network equipment’s etc. In
order to develop an innovative business case, it is important for ASUS to enlist their
requirements, focus on their product development process, market emergence, pricing strategy,
customer awareness programs and many more. This business care of ASUS will be focusing on
introduction of new product due to increasing demand of their existing products within their
existing customer base. Business case which will help the organization to get an idea about their
target customers and introduce a new product into the market.
 First step of innovative business case is to develop a list of product and service offerings that
are offered by ASUS. This will help them to study their current products and its features and
understand what new features can be added within their current products or services to make
it look more effective. This will help ASUS to understand what are the features or products
that are mostly liked by their customers. This will help them to understand features that they
need to introduce in their new product.
 For this ASUS needs to conduct a market survey which would help them to understand what
are the requirements of the customers that they can use as an addition to be added into their
new products as new features. This survey will help ASUS to list all the features of their
existing product that they can integrate and club together and introduce it in their new
product.
 Next step to set an appropriate price of the new product for their targeted customers. So,
ASUS needs to use their current pricing strategy and set an appropriate price of the product
that they would deliver to their customers. This price should be set in such a manner it seems
fair to the customers. This can be done by analysing their current products and their prices
and on the basis of this analysis set the price of new product accordingly.
 Then they need to focus projecting their fund flow statement which would help ASUS to
understand change reason in financial performance of the company in which outflow and
inflow statement are compared.
 Next step is to focus on promotional activity. As ASUS is a multinational company so they
need to focus on both national and global customers so that they can maintain or upgrade
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their brand image. It is important for ASUS to focus on this step and build an effective
promotional activity according to their funds and allowance of expenditure.
Ways to access funds: there are various sources through which ASUS can access funds such as:
from their subsidiaries, investors, credit, ventures etc.
Total expenditure of the company
Manufacturing-$500
Raw material-$400
Labour-$450
Management-$300
Marketing-$150
Total-$1800
Total revenue of the company
Product Price Quantity Revenue
Computer cases $10 $100 $1000
Sound card $50 $10 $500
Computer
components
$70 $70 $4900
Total $6400
Total estimated profit=$6400- $1800= $4600
LO 4 Range of methods for protecting ideas and understand their advantages
and disadvantages
Tools to develop, retain and protect knowledge and intellectual property
One of the most important thing to be forced on for organizations is to develop, protect and
retain their ideas, knowledge and intellectual property so that those ideas, techniques or
knowledge is not copied or used by other organizations. There are various ways through which
an organization can retain and protect their ideas, knowledge and techniques. Especially in
technological industry and for organizations like ASUS it is extremely important for them to
focus on their technologies, ideas, knowledge etc. as in this industry ideas or techniques re easily
copied or used by other otherizations (Weng and et.al., 2018). Three main methods that can be
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used by organizations in protecting their ideas, knowledge, intellectual property or techniques
are: patents, trademark and copyright.
Patents: it is mainly used to protect any kind of design, inventions or other confidential things of
an organizations. In other words, these are intellectual property rights that are provided to the
inventors.
Trademark: Trademarks are used to differentiate an organization’s products or services from
their competitors’ products and services. In other words, trademark can be defined as a symbol,
word or phrase through which products or services can be identified or differentiated from
various other kinds of similar products. For example: Apple has protected their product name
and product shape o with the help of trademark. Likewise, ASUS can also protect their new
product name and their new product shape with the help of trademark.
Copyright: It is another type of tool that helps organizations to secure their artistic work from
getting copied. In other words, copyright protects owner’s ownership of their artistic work like
computer software’s, digital creations etc. It is one of the most important things for organizations
like ASUS so that they can copyright their designs, software’s etc. organizations can also focus
on protecting their work derivatives like sequel. For example Star Wars has copyright of their
products i.e. no one other than star war can make a sequel of their movies.
Organizations need to follow various kinds of legal formalities before adopting any of the
above tools i.e. only after fulfilment of these formalities’ organizations can adopt one of the
above protection tools (Mollick and Robb, 2016).
Company can also protect their data by:
 By ensuring that data is used lawfully
 By preserving personal data of employees
 Using all the personal data legally
 By reviewing procedures or guidelines regularly for data protection.
There are various challenges that are faced by organizations in developing successful innovation.
 One of the main challenges is that employees are not empowered to innovate this challenge
can be reduced by providing leaders support to the employees (Ghahramani, 2016).
 Missing innovation strategy is another challenge that can be eliminated by focusing risk
management, operational implementation so that direction for innovation can be created and
based on this an innovation strategy can be build.
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CONCLUSION
From the above assignment it has been summarized that there are various ways in which
vision, leadership, culture and teamwork can help an organization in shaping commercialization
and innovation. There are different types of innovation and each innovation type source of
innovation. It has also been analyzed that in order to shape innovative ideas it is important for
organizations to use innovation funnel technique. For commercialization of innovation
organizations need to use NPD processes and commercial funnel method which would further
help them in development of new products. There are many types of tools or methods that can be
used by organizations for protecting and retaining their ideas, knowledge, intellectual property,
technology etc.
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REFERENCES
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