Innovation and Commercialisation Analysis for 4com Company Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of innovation and commercialization strategies, focusing on their significance for organizations. It explores the concepts of innovation versus invention, organizational leadership, culture, vision, and teamwork, and their impact on fostering innovation and commercialization. The report delves into the 4Ps of innovation and the application of the innovation funnel to evaluate new ideas, with a discussion of frugal innovation. Additionally, it examines the importance of the commercial funnel and the new product development process, including a detailed business case study for the 4com company. Finally, the report outlines various tools used to develop, retain, and protect knowledge and intellectual property, providing a holistic overview of innovation management.

Innovation

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1 ...........................................................................................................................................4
P1. Innovation and determine its significance to organisations in comparison with invention. .4
P2 Organisational leadership, culture, vision and teamwork in innovation and
commercialisation...................................................................................................................6
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................7
P3 4Ps of innovation and use of innovation funnel in order to examine innovative ideas.....7
P4 Explanation of developments in frugal innovation...........................................................9
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................9
P5 Importance of commercial funnel and the application of new product development.......9
P6 Innovation business case for 4com company..................................................................11
TASK4...........................................................................................................................................12
P 7. Different tools used to develop, retain and protect knowledge and intellectual properties
..............................................................................................................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
REFERENCE ................................................................................................................................13
Books and Journals ..............................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Innovation can be described as certain unique idea, model, technique or input that leads
to formulation of new and improved product and service for a firm. Innovation and
commercialisation forms two major points of discussion in this project. Commercialization is
associated with marketing activity which assists a firm in gaining advantage of market by
analysing different trends and strategies prevailing in it (Aghion, Van Reenen and Zingales,
2013).
4com company is telecommunication company which was established in 1999 with its
headquarters in Bournemouth, Dorset, UK. It specialises in providing telecom equipments,
services and solutions for UK SME's.
This assessment will discuss about meaning and significance of innovation for a firm
along with impact of vision, leadership, teamwork and culture in shanghaiing innovation. It will
also give a brief about 4P's of innovation along with innovation funnel and its significance in
new product development cycle.

TASK 1
P1. Innovation and determine its significance to organisations in comparison with invention
Innovation is one of the most critical yet important issue of an firm as it serves a catalyst
in capturing attention of new potential buyers and retain existing ones by providing them
products and services as per changing needs and requirements. In case of business, innovation
make it to earn higher return on its investment by enabling firm to get adaptive as well to grow
in dynamic business environment. In simplest context, innovation is defined as application of
creative and unique ideas, information, procedures and applying them in order to manufacture
an entirely unique product or to enhance the existing product so that company achieve
competitive edge over its business rivals. On the other hand, Invention is described as process of
creating and cultivating a unique, peculiar, discernible idea that has not been made, introduced
or utilized by any person (Anderson, Potočnik and Zhou, 2014). In today's of dynamic
environment where in there is immense competitive innovation serves as an significant asset for
gaining advantage over business rivals by increasing customer's satisfaction. Most prominent
feature of innovation is that it not just create something new but also enhances its utility for
customers as well as for society and environment.
In case of 4com , innovation is the way in which firm make alteration in its services and
products to ensure that it remain ahead of in market by successfully achieving its targets with
higher returns. Out of the many, certain most prominent significance of innovation is mentioned
below:- Helps in improving communication: If a company wants to be more innovative than
communication needs to be underpin its entire effort from start to finish. It is because
any idea, suggestion or opinion might results in some great innovation. Thus, 4com
maintains a two way communication between is hierarchy levels encouraging its
employees to be participative in decision making process to get the advantage of their
skills and knowledge to innovate something new (Battistella and Nonino, 2012).
 Increases safety and health: Product and service innovation increasing the efficiency of
them by reducing their previous defects and lacking thereby making them more secure to
use and reducing probability of accident at the workplace. It supports 4com company to
make use of robots in moving heavy things so as to provide security and safety to

employees from serious injuries. New idea also helps in proving appropriate working
conditions to the employees by which health and safety problems will be reduced .
 Innovation leads business been adaptive to market changes- Innovation is concerned
with discovering new usage of an existing product or add on certain features in it. Thus,
it enables a 4com to cope up and handle frequently changing taste and preferences of
consumers in accordance with market trends , fashion etc.
 Maintaining an edge over competitors- : Innovation makes a product more functional
in terms of usage bring a significant change in its quality and performance. By inducing
new and creative thinking and applying new methods, techniques it 4com is able to
differentiate its goods from that of business rivals and to capture new clients gain
competitive advancement over its business rivals (Boons and Lüdeke-Freund, 2013).
 Implement best method for organizations: Innovation process involves in depth
analysis regarding present and future market trends,surveys related to customers buying
behavior and needs, preferences and aspirations which serves as a useful tool for
designing and developing most appropriate techniques and methods for producing. Helpful in creating brand image:- By introducing latest and most creative and
competitive products customized as per consumer's requirements, innovation assists
business in in building and enhancing brand image of its goods and services in market.
Difference between innovation and invention is evaluated as below:
Innovation Invention
 Innovation is process of applying new
ideas and creative thinking in order to
make modification in the present
products resulting leading to an
enhancement in its performance
 It is concerned with adding value in
exciting goods thereby increasing its
worth.
 It implies to increasing productivity
and effectiveness of a current
product either through making
 Invention on other hand relates to
creating an entirely new product that
has never introduces or manufactured
before by anybody. It can be a process,
technology, device, module or so on .
 It associates with launching an
completely fresh and unique product in
response to changes in customers needs
and wants.
 Invention requires hiring a team of
experts having special skills and

alteration, modifying it or finding new
ways of its usage .
knowledge to i to design new products.
P2 Organisational leadership, culture, vision and teamwork in innovation and commercialisation
It is visibly evident that successful are companies those have been pioneer in launching
innovate and creative products by following philosophy of being proactive rather than competing
with its rivals (Boudreau and Lakhani, 2013). Thus, for achieving its objective of attaining
customer's satisfaction by fulfilling their fast changing needs and wants to generate higher
returns and maximum output. As An The employees by being biggest sources of innovation as it
is by utilizing their creative ideas, suggestions for new ways for dong a particular task plays
major role in introducing innovative products by a firm. Thus management plays vital role in
channelizing the pace and motive creative imagination and participation of its team so that firm
can select the most unique and different approach for producing products and services out of the
pool of different ideas.
The 4com company have an efficient team of professionals that enables firm to
efficiently and effectively implement its innovation and commercializing it at the workplace in
order to achieve customer satisfaction. To stand ahead in the market an enterprise should
create :-
Role of vision in innovation and commercialisation
VISION:- To improve communication services in UK SME's. Working on its vision
4com tries to improve and enhance communication services by introducing innovative products
like business phones supported by by 4com's UK based support and installation which helps
them to induce demand among corporate clients and other consumers (Díaz-García, González-
Moreno and Sáez-Martínez, 2015).
Role of leadership in innovation and commercialisation
Leadership is an ability of a person to influence its professional by motivating them to
work in one direction to attain goals of a firm. Leaders in 4com company helps n bringing
innovation and in commercialisation of product and services by encouraging its workforce to be
proactive and by improving and enhancing their capabilities by applying various strategies like

implementing proper communication system, team building activities and by applying effective
models for addressing issues.
Role of organisational culture in innovation and commercialisation
Culture of any organization has a direct and significant impact on development and
innovation as it represents firm's core values, beliefs and attitude of employees.4com takes a
great pride on its culture as so far the firm has been successfully able to achieve excellence in
each of its operations because of the dedicated and hard working team. company is also
responsible for implementing innovation and commercialisation.
Role of team work in innovation and commercialisation
4com company have a advantage of dedicated team of 300 employees which supports
company to successfully implement and commercialize its innovation. It is because engineers of
4Com regularly keeps on interacting with its clients and assist them by demonstrating and
teaching them system handling while installing it. Thus, they play major role in introduction of
new technology and products as they get thorough idea about customers needs and what are
lacking in existing products by which they modify existing and introduce new and better goods
and services.
TASK 2
P3 4Ps of innovation and use of innovation funnel in order to examine innovative ideas
In order to make an innovative product 4Com uses 4P's of innovation which enables it to
explore its current business position and provide direction to improve its product, process,
position and paradigm. These 4P's are described as follows: Product: Product is the physical goods, commodity offered by a firm to its customers as
per their requirement to achieve customer satisfaction leading to higher sales volume and
higher growth. 4Com smartly identified the requirement of business phones in market
and satisfy this demand of its customers by providing innovative product. Process: Process as a whole represents the cycle of the product development in a
company. In 4Com context,resources like funds, human resources, technology etc. that
are of higher priorities are obtained by company and a detailed analysis is done about
how to improve them (Drucker, 2014). Thus, by making use of innovative tools and
techniques company is able to produce business phones for its consumers.

 Position: Positioning a product is similar with promotion. 4COM by making use of
various promotional tools like print and digital media for advertising its business phones
for positioning its product in it target market .
 Paradigm: Paradigm is concerned with changing a way in which something is presently
done in an organization. It could be in terms of process, product, techniques or anything
else. Thus, paradigm assists a company in dealing with differences between innovation
and invention and adding on new and creative ideas to improve its current products and
services. 4Com company make use innovation in paradigm to add on good features in its
of it, so as to add the good features in business phones.
Innovation funnel:
Innovation funnel is method adopted by management to utilize and implement most
appropriate ideas, innovation , process, techniques etc. that supports a firm in catering market
demand in most reasonable fashion (Innovation Funnel,2016.). In this manger from pool of
immense options selects the most unique and distinctive idea that is more likely to be beneficial
for both customers and business. Mentioned below are three steps involved in innovation
funnel:-
 Focuses on wide mouth of funnel: At initial stage business enhances its information,
knowledge and gather as many ideas as possible by make using use of various sources
like from university, exiting partners,competitors,etc. to examine present market trends
to discover new competencies and capabilities of firm.
 Narrowing segment of funnel:- This stage involves short listing from plethora of
innovative ideas by deeply studying the feasibility and risks factors invo0lbed with each
on of them.
 Narrow segment of funnel:- It is the last stage which involves launching of a new
product after insuring about it being feasible in all aspect.
4Com has a potential to cater the needs of its customers by providing them with innovative
business phones, which enables them to capture large market share (Gennaioli, Shleifer and
Vishn, 2012). However it is of utmost importance for 4com to continuously modifying its
techniques and methods as per changes occurring in market dynamics.

P4 Explanation of developments in frugal innovation
Frugal innovation is the process of introducing and developing new business models,
recreating products or removing its non requisite features to make it more productive,affordable,
durable and qualitative, value change modifications etc. It helps company to provide structural
solutions in reference to various resources. Mentioned below are the significance of FI are listed
below: Helps in the innovating additional characteristic: This is one of the most essential
feature that can assist 4com to upgrade and modify its products and services in order to
gain customers satisfaction and thereby gaining higher profitability and market share.
Innovation in the products of 4com will help in providing excellent experience of gadgets
to the customers. For instance 4com in order to provide excellent gadget experience can
provide user friendly software in order to gain competitive edge over business rivals. Reduce the production cost: This process is helpful in reducing cost of production of a
firm helps to reduce the cost of production by utilizing new and improved tools and
techniques which significantly reduces cost of manufacturing.
 Expand product line: 4com company has introduced the latest technology and has full
view of a particular product to reach its customers and the target markets. Frugal
innovation helps the company in increasing its product line, which helps the company to
grow in the market.
TASK 3
P5 Importance of commercial funnel and the application of new product development
Commercial funnel also known as sales funnel visually explains the sales process that
initiates from customers contact to final sale. 4Com deals with a number of technical gadgets
such as business phone systems,software and application, business internet and broadband, calls
and lines and business lines etc. for fulling communication related expectations of consumers.
Commercial funnel innovation could be describes as procedure in which 4com company
conducts a detailed survey about needs and requirements, develops or modify a product in
relation to it and deliver it to its customers (Lee, Kao and Yang, 2014). In this era of
digitalization, business phone systems developed by 4com plays a significant role in the modern
business and provide customers with varied innovative and new features other than calling.

Introduction Hi Hi is one such feature in UK's business phone system which provide video
calling feature.
Commercialisation is the way by which introduction of the new product or service is
being made in the market. Application of the new product development is used for processing
commercialisation of innovation. Development of the new product includes various steps like:
 Idea generation: It forms the initial phase which involves nurturing an idea by doing its
feasibility analysis through techniques like SWOT analysis to ensure that it is realistic
and logical.
 Screening of idea : It involves selecting most prominent and profitable ideas and
rejecting the other non feasible options.
 Funding : Funds are required to convert business plan into action (Lee, Olson and
Trimi, 201O). Thus company explore and finds out the expected stakeholders that are
interested in investing in business plan. Development and testing : This stage is concerned with developing concept and testing
it on selected target audience. In this selected group of consumers are given information
about the new product and their opinion and reviews are asked. If this survey reveals
positive results company accepts the project for further execution.
 Business strategy analysis : In this stage usefulness and profitability of developing the
selected concept into new product is ascertained through market survey and market
research. Product Development:- This phase includes formulating strategies related to finance,
marketing, production,advertising etc. for developing new product with all pre
determined specifications. Test marketing: It involves introducing the new product into selected target market to
confirm weather it will be successful or not for its success. For this feedback are taken
from those customers to ascertain any modification required in the product.
 Commercialization: This is the last stage in which a product is launched in entire market
and firm initiates is product promotion schemes through its marketing mix (wen,
Macnaghten and Stilgoe, 2012).

P6 Innovation business case for 4com company
4Com company was established in 1999, with the motive to enhance and improve
communication services in UK SME's. A business case is generally formulated in order to
measure the risk involved in investing in an innovation, to convince stakeholders and
administration to Business case is being developed in order to justify risk of investing in an
innovation, to convince administration to approve it and to make sure that all the process and
strategies are implemented as per the basic plan. Innovation business case of 4com consist of
few steps which includes: Executive summary: 4com company strives to provide innovative telecommunication
services to its clients in UK, so that it can attract large number of consumers leading to
increase its brand image in market (Strayer, 2012). The need: Major requirement of firm is to fulfil needs of its corporate clients who could
make efficient use of business phone systems, business broadband and internet. Why product is innovative: Next step in business plan procedure is to find out what
makes a company's product innovative. The business phone of 4Com uses the latest
innovative technology known as HiHi which helps customers to make video calls from
that business phone system. Customer research: This step includes market research by 4com to know about needs,
special feature requirements and other specification that its target audience expects ina
product. The main focus of company is on corporate clients who largely uses business
phones. Design and development plans: After market research, 4com starts designing and
development a new product as per customers specifications . Requirement of investment: 4com requires finance and funds to develop its new product
for which analyse various sources like financial institutes, credit societies, friends,
shareholders etc.
 Expected benefits: This reveals the probable benefits that 4com is expected to achieve by
introducing its new product.

TASK4
P 7. Different tools used to develop, retain and protect knowledge and intellectual properties
Intellectual property means rights in the form of intangible artifact or unit of human mind
in form of patents, copyrights and trademarks. They are important for a company to protect and
safeguard its innovations so that it is not imitated, steal or utilized without permission by any
person or competitors. For this purpose government has formulated certain legislations which are
defined as an intellectual property right for securing their major invention and innovation :-
 Copyright : It refers to sole and exclusive rights provided to the owner of intellectual
property to manufacture, utilize, publish or sell its creation. This is most effective
measure for protecting one's intellectual property.
 Patents : These are the exclusive rights provided by government to business owner for a
specific time frame which prohibits others from commercially selling, utilizing,
distributing or importing an invention already patented without asking permission of its
real owner.
 Trade mark:- It refers to any symbol, combination of words, logo, image, letter, colour
combination etc. used by any company and that cannot be used by any other enterprise or
a person without seeking permission of actual owner.
Conclusion
From the assignment it can be concluded that innovation and commercialisation is quiet
essential for a firm in conversion of its business idea into an innovative products and services
assisting a firm to achieve competitive advantage over its competitors. There are various
attributes influences innovation process. It also describes how innovation and commercialisation
will be helpful for 4com company to capture large market share by attracting potential
consumers and retaining existing one. Moreover the report also analysis that how 4P's of the
innovation help out in preparation and implementation of new product development of a firm.
Business plan for the innovation will help in making step by step by analysis of the product
development.