Innovation and Commercialisation Strategies in Essence Drinks UK

This report delves into the critical aspects of innovation and commercialisation within a business context, using Essence Drinks, a UK-based company specialising in healthy mango lassi, as a case study. It highlights the importance of innovation in achieving business growth, brand image enhancement, and competitive advantage. The report differentiates between innovation and invention, elaborating on the 4P's of innovation (Product, Process, Position, Paradigm) and the uses of the innovation funnel in identifying and evaluating new product opportunities. It further explores the concept of frugal innovation for cost-effective management and sustainable development. The application of new product development for commercialisation is discussed, along with an evaluation of tools for protecting intellectual property rights, providing a comprehensive overview of how businesses can leverage innovation for success.

Innovation and
Commercialisation
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Innovation and its importance......................................................................................................3
Shaping of innovation and commercialization............................................................................4
4 types of innovation ...................................................................................................................5
4P's of innovation.........................................................................................................................6
Uses of Innovation funnel............................................................................................................7
Frugal innovation.........................................................................................................................8
Importance of Commercial Funnel..............................................................................................9
Application of New Product Development..................................................................................9
Business case study....................................................................................................................10
Tools to protect the intellectual property...................................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14
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INTRODUCTION
In the dynamic environment, Innovation is essential for the growth of the business. It
provides foundation to business to achieve new levels of technologies, productivity and
ultimately, prosperity (Ortiz-Villajos, 2018). It focuses on creation of cost effective management
with sustainable business. Innovation has a lot of benefits such as reduces obsolescence,
increased product reliability with better utilization of resources.
Essence Drinks is a company which is founded by Akshay Kumar. It has been in business
for the last 3 years. The company was launched in the UK market with only one product that is
the healthy mango lassi. The company had a dramatic sales in the first year of its business due to
its innovative formula.
This report shows the meaning of innovation, its importance, and the difference between
innovation and invention. It also, explains the 4P's of innovation with the importance of
innovation funnel and commercial funnel. Further, it provides the developments in frugal
innovation. It shows the application of new product development for commercialization of
innovation and a brief business case of Essence Drinks. And lastly, evaluation of different tools
used for protecting intellectual property right.
MAIN BODY
Innovation and its importance
Innovation means an organization process for introducing new services, ideas,
methodology or workflows. It helps to improve the existing products and services of a company.
The main purpose of innovation is to create value for any organization (Abdelkafi, 2018). That is
by improving productivity and efficiencies that saves time and money with the help of
innovation.
Invention means entirely creating a new product or new process(Maier, 2018). It
involves using of new technologies to create new products to generate higher revenue and
growth of the business.
Importance of innovation
Innovation is a key element in the success of an organization. It helps Essence Drinks
either in improving its existing process and products or creating new ones from scratch which
results in the growth of organization. It also helps business to reach on the top of its competitors.
Growth of any organization means when there is an increment in the revenue of the organization
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(Geissdoerfer, 2018). So with innovation, it adds value to the existing product which results in
the generating higher profits. In the case of Essence Drinks, the company by bringing innovation
in the existing products like by adding different variants of lassi. It can increase the value of the
product which increase the range of products leading to higher revenue. However, in invention it
creates completely new product which results in growth but it increases the cost. Because to
create a new product a whole new strategy, process, methodology has to be created which results
in increasing the cost.
Brand image is important for any organization as it creates organizational sustainability.
Innovation also helps to create brand image of the product which help to attract more customer
and eventually leading towards the growth of company. Essence drinks by innovating its
existing products packaging that is changing its labels or resizing the products, it can increase its
brand image by retaining the existing buyer and also attract new buyers. But in case of invention
it can end up in wasting of resources. By developing a product which is not successful and
doesn't sell it will result in wasting of time and resource. Also, it can result in damaging the
image of the brand.
With the rapid and dynamic market, competitors are increasing rapidly. Every
organization wants to top the leader board. Innovations helps Essence Drinks to stay ahead of its
competitors as innovation helps to predict the needs of the customer in the market. If Essence
Drinks do not cope with the rapid changes that is does not innovate its products, other companies
will take advantage of that by innovating there product, leading to fall in the profit of the
company. Essence drink can also by bringing innovation in its existing product by evaluating the
market needs. On other hand, in invention companies are not able to produce the new product on
large scale which result in high cost and low profits affecting the growth of company.
Shaping of innovation and commercialization
Commercialization is a process of introducing new product and services to the existing
market (Rogers, 2004). Commercialization also includes sales, distribution, marketing and other
function for achieving commercial success of the new product.
Every organization vision is to do business for a long-term. Vision is the base of any
company. It provides direction to an organization for achieving growth and leading the company
towards success. Vision of the organization should be clear from the beginning. The vision of the
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Essence drink clear that it want to specialize in lassi. As it has clear vision it is easier to innovate
and commercialize variants of lassi. But, if the vision is only not clear that it doesn't know
towards what they are working to achieve, innovation cannot be made. Innovation is easier to
make like by offering different varieties in the same product and commercialising it, making
growth of the company.
Culture affects all aspects of any business. It is a key advantage when it comes to
attracting customers and outperforming its competition. Similarly, Essence Drinks can prioritize
its culture which will help the company to cope up with the changing environment. That is if the
company has a dynamic culture, innovation can easily be incorporated and also
commercialization of new products is also easier as culture is of nature that adopts new strategy.
Essence Drinks should has a positive culture which promotes innovative thinking of its
employees. It has a culture which is innovative that is encouraging creativity, participation of
employees, recognising the unique talents of employees which will help the company to get
more innovation options to choose from thus, leading towards the growth of the company.
Leadership is a key factor which brings together the work of organization seamlessly.
Without proper leadership all resources of business are ineffective. It depends on the different
styles of leadership which are followed by organization to inculcate innovation and
commercialization. Essence Drinks follows a leadership style which is more democratic and less
autocratic which is open to suggestion from its employees about innovation. Also, employees
would take part and contribute toward the success of innovation. And execution of
commercialization is possible id it has a democratic leadership style.
Teamwork is the backbone of any business. It helps in building employee relationship.
Teamwork maintains an enjoyable work environment and also increases efficiency. With the
help of teamwork the Essence drinks can shape its innovation as teamwork is important aspect
which leads to communication so ideas of innovation can be shared by subordinate to their
superior that is, it will have more creative ideas of innovation to choose from. With proper
coordination between the teams there can proper utilization of resources which will result in
successful innovation. Also, commercialization of any new product would also become easier
with proper communication and coordination between different teams.
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4 types of innovation
The four types of innovation are:1. Incremental Innovation- It is one of the most commonly used form of innovation. It is
an innovation where it utilizes its existing technologies within the existing market and
increases value to the customers (Satell, 2017).2. Architectural Innovation- It is an innovation process where company uses its existing
technology within new markets. The risk involve is very less as it helps in increasing the
reach of customers by the reintroduction of proven technologies.3. Radical Innovation- It is a process where new technologies are being innovated in the
new market. The risk involved here is very high as new technologies and new market are
been created.
4. Disruptive Innovation- It is also known as the stealth innovation. It is an innovation
where new technologies are being introduced in the existing market. The Essence drink
can also use such type of innovation where new technologies can be innovated so that
there product cost can be reduced which will result in higher profits and also they can be
ahead of their competitors. It can also use new technology to produce different variants of
the product thus increasing the product line.
4P's of innovation
The 4P's of innovation model was developed by John Bessant and Joe Tidd. The model
focuses in four main categories which are:
 Product- What the company is offering its customers ?
 Process- How the company creates or delivers its product to customers ?
 Position- Whom the company offers the product or services?
 Paradigm- Where, how, why the product is used?
Product
It states that introducing new product in the market or improvement in the existing
product which increases the value of the product (Akgun and et.al., 2017). Similarly, the Essence
Drinks should introduce new variants of its existing product so that there market share can be
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increased. And with innovation in its existing product it will help to retain the existing customer
and hence, increasing the market share of the company.
Process
It focuses on the innovation in the process of the product that is innovation in the
manufacturing process of a product (Ubaid and et.al., 2019). And also it focuses on innovating
new techniques to deliver their product or services to its customers. Essence drink can also
innovate its production technologies so that it will help them to reduce the cost of production and
generating higher revenues.
Positioning
It aims at innovation in the market segment in which the product or services is been
currently targeted. Essence drink by innovating its market segment can lead to innovation of
completely new products which will result in increasing the brand image. And with this company
can have completely new chain of revenue generation.
Paradigm
This model of innovation states the challenges which are to be faced after innovation in
the product, process of products or positioning of product. Essence Drink with the help of this
model can identify that whether there is proper positioning of the product or not, is the new
production techniques helpful in reduction of cost or not.
Uses of Innovation funnel
The innovation funnel is a mechanism where there is continuous flow of innovative ideas
That can be screened for viability (Lazzarotti, 2009). The aim of an innovation funnel is that the
best and most viable idea remains while the others are filtered out.
One of the most important uses of innovation funnel is that it help to identify
opportunities for innovation a new product or a product line by assessing the market and its
customers. The Essence drinks can analyse its market needs and innovate new products keeping
in mind the what the market needs. And with proper analyses of the market the chances of failure
of new products are also being reduced.
Another use of an innovation funnel is that it helps to evaluate a product and
benchmarking it. With the help of various test and feedback forms new products can be
evaluated by the company on the basis of targeted customers. Similarly, Essence Drinks should
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also evaluate its new products through it customers and make necessary changes in the
innovation if required for producing a successful innovation. It will also help Essence Drinks in
knowing whether their product is being liked by the customers or not and also if there are any
changes to be made in the product.
Frugal innovation
Cost effective management, reduction in the negative effects of globalization and
sustainable development are serious aspects that every organization keeps in mind while doing
business.
Frugal innovation is a new emerging concept. It is a process which reduces the
complexity and cost of production of a product (Albert, M., 2019). In other words it means
removal of non essential elements from a substantial product. This approach as helps in creation
of cheaper but quality products, with using the latest technologies which helps in minimizing
cost of production.
Essence Drinks can also use this innovation technique so that cost of production can be
reduced. It can eliminate unnecessary steps from its product which help to minimize the cost. For
eg. Lassi is made from yogurt. So instead of buying yogurt from suppliers. It can produce its own
yogurt which will result in cost reduction of their product. Also, it will help the company to
reduce its complexity in procurement of raw materials that is if the company itself will produce
its raw material they don't have to wait for suppliers to send the raw material they can
manufacture their product at their on will. As it is producing its own raw material it will also
result in better quality of their product without increasing the cost of production.
Frugal innovation does not only mean adding more value to customers with fewer
resources (Fischer, and et.al., 2020). It means to develop new strategies and a completely new
way of thinking. It can be only achieved when everyone is involved in creation and
implementation of new strategy.
For eg. Appy Juice is a fruit juice company, it imports its raw material which results in
higher cost of production, so to reduce its cost it has started to buy it raw material locally which
helps to save time as well reduces cost of production.
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Similarly, in case of Beetel, it's a company selling milkshakes, it has started using
modern technology tools which has helped them provide better quality product without
increasing its costs.
Importance of Commercial Funnel
Understanding the concept of commercial funnel is important because it is a visual
representation of the path that a potential customer takes towards becoming a customer
(Venermo, 2020). The four pillars on which commercial funnel is based on are awareness,
interest, decision and action. The importance of creating commercial funnel is :
 Generation of new leads- when a commercial funnel is built. It is known that who is
going to be top, middle and bottom respectively. Which will help to deliver the right
message to the right position considering the position on the funnel (Sergeev, 2019). It
will result in generation of new leads on time and in a cost-efficient way.
 Cold leads into buying customers- commercial funnel helps to turn cold leads into warm
and paying customers. As it offers that inspired visitors can share their contact
information. In case of Essence Drinks it can contact its customers about the new
products that are launched which will create awareness among its customer and result in
higher sales of their product.
With the help of commercial funnel Essence drinks can understand its customer's
journey. It will also help Essence drinks to find out at what stage the potential customer dropped
and why the customer did not buy the product. It will provide the company a framework which
identifies the areas where the company needs to improve. It will also help Essence Drinks to
generate more sales and grow its business if it applies the commercial funnel properly.
Application of New Product Development
New product development means developing new products which can be brought to the
market or renewing the existing products and bringing it to new market(Mohammadi
Moghadam, 2018). It is a development process which is divided into stages and steps, by which
Essence Drinks can introduce its new product.
The first step of new product development is to generate new product ideas. Essence
Drinks should brainstorm new ideas through R&D or from contribution of employees. The
second step is screening and evaluation of ideas. The Essence Drinks should then evaluate all the
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ideas it has and filter out the unnecessary ideas. At this stage it needs to evaluate all the ideas and
select the best ideas. The third step is where concept development and testing is done. Here,
selected product ideas will be presented in a detailed way as a product concepts. In this step the
Essence Drinks should develop a product concept from the ideas it has selected above. The
fourth step is the marketing strategy. This a very important step that is identifying where the
product is going to be sold, at what price on the long term bases (Jagtap, 2019). In this step the
Essence Drinks marketing strategy based on the product development concept. The next step is
product development. Samples of new product will be created by the research and development
department of Essence Drinks so that assessment can be made whether the product is attractive,
it can be produced at expected time and cost.
With this, the process of NPD is completed. But with the completion of the process the
first thing company should do is to commercialise its new product. It means determining various
things that is time when the new product is going to be introduced, at which scale the production
will be based of the new product. The Essence Drink now has to aim towards the
commercialisation of its new product. It is a juice company selling lassi that is mainly consumed
in summer season. So, at the time of commercialisation it should keep in mind the time that is it
is not introducing its product in winter season as it will result in less sales and will lead to failure
of the new product initially.
Business case study
Essence Drinks is company which was founded by Akshay Kumar two years ago. The
company launched itself in the market with one product that is healthy mango lassi. With the
innovative idea of launching lassi in the UK market it had achieved success with high profits.
But gradually, with the increase in its competition, there was a drastic fall in the sales of their
product. So to increase its sales again the company needs to innovate new products so that
company can re-create its brand value by attracting more customers.
Benefits
With the use of innovation funnel Essence Drinks can filter the most suitable ideas of
innovation. Also, it can use the commercial funnel to find out the potential customer who will
further become a buying customer. With the help of commercial funnel, the company can
generate more leads in time and cost-efficient manner which will indeed result in generation of
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higher revenue. One of the most important use of commercial funnel is that creates cold leads
into paying customer. So, Essence drinks can also use this advantage of the commercial funnel to
create warm and buying customers.
Risk
As the company is focusing on the innovation in their products and not inventing a new
product. Therefore, the risk factor is comparatively low as the company is just innovating its
existing product so the chances of failure are comparatively less if it would invent a completely
new product.
With the new emerging concept of innovation that is frugal innovation. Essence Drinks
can innovate its product by reducing the cost of production and elimination of non-essential
elements in the whole process which will help to save time and resources.
Innovation Ideas
Essence Drinks with the concept of frugal innovation can also innovate its product by
reducing cost. Instead of buying the raw material from suppliers it can produce its own raw
material for e.g.; yogurt which is the main element in making lassi so instead of buying yogurt
they can produce their own yogurt which will reduce its cost but also will help to increase the
quality of the product as well as it will save time as well.
Another innovation that Essence Drink can bring is that it on sells on product that is a
mango lassi. So, by innovating different variants of it that is innovation of different flavours. For
e.g. Strawberry lassi or Pineapple lassi etc.. The company can increase its product line by
offering more varieties to its customers. With this the company's market value will also rise.
With the development of new product the company can test the effectiveness of the new
drinks by distributing samples of the new drinks to research and development for quality test and
some samples can be distributed to customers so that Essence Drinks can evaluate their new
product on the basis of their customers engagement with the new product whether they like the
product or not.
Funding
The most important crucial aspect that is the funding required for the innovation in the
product. The Essence Drinks for innovation of its product can either take a loan or a grant from
a bank. It has to pay a fixed amount over a period with interest. Also, it can opt for equipment
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financing that is to purchase modern technology. Here, the equipment is a collateral so there is
no need of stellar credits or financials
Tools to protect the intellectual property
Intellectual property is a type of property which includes intangible creation such as
inventions, designs and symbols of human intellect(Davoudi and et.al., 2018.). Tools used to
protect these rights are:
Patents- These are used to protect the creative ideas and processes of inventing
something new(Hara, 2020). Patents are basically used for invention. It retains the right of owner
from others. In UK the patent has a maximum life of 20 years. According to the UK property
intellectual office, patents include work of art, mathematical methods and scientific theories.
Trademarks- Trade mark is associated with the name of the product and services. In
other words it is by which a product is known to the customers(Castaldi, 2018). In UK, it gives
the owner an exclusive right to use trademarks on those products and services for which it is
registered. Essence Drink should also register its products under this so others cannot claim to
that mark. And in case of an infringement, it is easier, quicker and less costly for taking action.
Trade Secrets- Trade secrets consists of three things:
 Is a secret.
 Has commercial value.
 Has subjected to reasonable steps.
It is an information which is confidential to provide owners a competitive advantage. Essence
drinks can also use trade secrets to protect their formula of lassi. They can implement policies
and procedures that restrict the access to these informations.
Industrial Design- It is defined as the product design which created in a specific shape,
pattern and colour for enhancing its value. Originality and visual appeal are the key elements
which need to be protected in industrial design. It has a period of enforceability is between 10–
25 years. In UK, it is obtained through the UK Intellectual Property office.
Database- Introduced in 1997, these were solely to protect the databases. Database
includes a set of collection of independent data and work materials in a systematic manner
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accessible by electronic means. The creator of database the responsibility of obtaining and
verifying the contents of it. Its is been granted for 15 years from date of creation.
Trade Dress- It is the visual appearance and overall look of a product that uniquely
signifies the product to its customers. It includes the container, design, advertisement themes,
marketing strategy and packaging of the product. The Essence Drinks can uses this also to
protect their brand packaging by registering it so that there product is unique in the market as
there cannot be duplication of the product by its competitors.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that innovation is very important aspect of
every business in the dynamic environment. It drives a business towards growth. Innovation adds
value to the existing product which results in higher profits. It also helps to create a brand image
which leads to organization sustainability. It helps business to cope up with the rapid changes
and stay ahead of its competitors. The 4P's of innovations to analyse the market and accordingly
innovate its products keeping in mind the needs of market. The risk of failure of a new product is
also low with the help of the 4P's as proper evaluation of markets is been done. There are various
techniques such as the innovation funnel and the commercial funnel helps to identify
opportunities in the market and also helps to generate more leads to increase the revenue. It is
also summarized from the report that innovation helps to reduce the cost and complexity of the
production which leads to growth and prosperity of the business. And also, with the help of
various tools of protecting intellectual property a business can keep its business unique by
registering its trademarks, trade secrets, patents, copyrights and trade dress.
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