Critically Evaluate Innovation, Technology, and Competitive Advantage

This essay critically evaluates the significance of innovation and the adaptation of new technologies in establishing a sustainable competitive advantage for companies. It emphasizes the role of innovation and unique technologies in gaining a competitive edge, ensuring long-term market presence and increased revenue. The essay defines innovation as the commercial execution of new ideas, concepts, technologies, and systems and highlights its importance in fostering growth and adapting to market changes. It explores the sources of innovation, including unexpected occurrences and demographic shifts, and discusses how businesses can leverage research to understand consumer behavior and adapt to changes. Furthermore, it examines how technological advancements, such as digital technologies and team collaboration software, contribute to improved efficiency and customer engagement. The essay also touches upon the impact of technology on work-life balance and the creation of paperless working environments, ultimately concluding that innovation and technology are crucial for businesses seeking to gain and maintain a competitive advantage in the market.

Essay
“Critically evaluate the importance of innovation
and adaptation of new technologies to create
sustainable competitive advantage for companies”

Table of Contents
“Critically evaluate the importance of innovation and adaptation of new technologies to create
sustainable competitive advantage for companies”.........................................................................1
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

“Critically evaluate the importance of innovation and adaptation of new
technologies to create sustainable competitive advantage for companies”
The essay focuses upon the creation of sustainable competitive advantage for company
by leveraging certain market opportunities. In this regard, the main emphasis of this paper is on
leveraging innovation as well as unique technologies for attaining the advantage. By gaining
sustainable competitive edge, a firm is able to ensure its existence in market place for a long
period of time in future context. This implies an increment in the revenues as well as profits of
corporation.
Innovation is considered as one of the most prominent factors which foster a sense of
competitiveness, and facilitate the growth and development of companies in the long run. It leads
to increment in profits and generation of durable value (Fernando, Jabbour and Wah, 2019). It is
seen as a crucial challenge for the overall organisation. It is a constant procedure which provides
opportunity to a firm to leave their mark upon the minds of customers for a long duration of
time. By incorporating innovation in the organisational culture and structure, a corporation seeks
to face the strategic challenges and leave a long lasting impact over the corporate sector within
the confines of which it carries out its operations.
In the modern era, innovation is seen as an integral part of companies. It is viewed by
companies as a driving factor for product as well as service competitiveness. It acts as a catalyst
of growth and fosters companies to come up with market disruptive offerings that can effectively
tap the minds of customers. The organisations having high rate of growth and development are
usually acknowledged to be those which take into account innovation to come up with solutions
to the issues being faced by society at large (Battisti and et. al., 2019). It is even seen that a
substantial proportion of the income of a company comes from the innovative offerings created
and sold by it to customers across the globe. It is a factor which largely inflates the capacity of a
corporation to adapt itself to the alterations taking place within the confines of its business
environment. With this, the firm is able to ensure its sustainability in market place for a long
period of time.
Innovation can be defined as the commercial execution of unique ideas, concepts,
technologies and systems with a view to derive positive results out of the same. Over the course
of time, it has become one of the most essential components of economic growth especially for
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the long run. With respect to this, it is analysed that the ability of an organisation to facilitate
innovation directly places impact over the economic growth. It is usually difficult to quantify the
benefits for a company coming out of application of innovation within the organisational
premises. This is so because knowledge associated with innovation can not be viewed in
economic terms.
Peter Drucker was a renowned management consultant as well as author who stipulated
some sources of innovation. These sources provide assistance to a corporation in effectively
transforming the opportunities into commercial reality (Shan and et. al., 2019). Thus, the sources
of innovation as laid down by the concerned author are acknowledged to be Unexpected
occurrences, Incongruities, Process needs, Industry and market changes, Demographic changes,
Changes in perception and New knowledge. Business innovation provides aid to organisations
across the globe to adapt them to the market and develop products and services that can cater to
the never ending needs and demands of people. For this purpose, a business needs to execute
research as this helps in gaining knowledge of the attitudes and patterns of consumers. Also, it
provides information to the company about the lifestyles of customers. As a result of this, the
entity is able to comprehend their buying behaviour and create offerings which can largely
satisfy their requirements and demands.
The changes that take place within the domain of business environment foster a company
to inculcate changes within its premises. These changes often account as innovation in product /
service / system / process / technology. In this regard, the competitive advantage is difficult to be
obtained by an organisation and even if gained, is not easy to be maintained. Hereby, innovation
serves as a the route map through which such competitive advantage can be attained by business.
This helps the entity in gaining an edge over the rival firms operating within the confines of
same corporate sector (Khan, Yang and Waheed, 2019). Through this, the long term survival of
organisation in market place can be guaranteed. Thus, the long lasting impact of incorporating
innovation within the company would be increment in existent level of revenues as well as
profits.
Apart from innovation, adaptation to technologies is yet another way through which a
firm can attain sustainable competitive advantage. In the 21st century, the world is coming up
with new and advanced technologies which are improvising the corporate culture and
infrastructure in the economy. Business related technologies are not only improvising the large
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corporate houses but also developing small business in which employees and managers can
communicate through video conferencing, online meetings and other. Similarly, technology
helps in creating benchmarks and integrating digitalisation in operations which results in saving
of time as well as money. In this regard, it has been analysed that digital technologies require
huge investment but it facilitate a firm in reaching to its customers very easily. Technology has
disrupted almost every corporate sector in the present time. Technologies play an important and
effective role to enable people to accessing information about anything which is related to
business. Through the utilisation of technologies, businesses across the globe strive to achieve
achieve their corporate goals and objectives within due course of tim
For business expansion the online official websites portals and Online Applications are
creating dominating to the business form that resources like mobiles, laptops are efficient enough
to ease of work at anytime and anywhere for communication with clients there is many reliable
source of social media which help to reach to the respective clients such as Emails, LinkedIn,
Facebook, Go daddy etc. Team collaboration Software and apps have changed the way in the
many business operate. They can collaborate using the messaging solution such as Slack, which
allows to business for separate conversation into channels which make easier to organization.
The most important thing for business growth through online or digital business is that
there is a platform to reach the customers as well their needs which fulfil all the requirements of
the customers through the technologies like online feedback improvisation, Interaction with
clients through Video conferencing for better known about their requirements. It helps to reduce
the barriers as well as the role of mediators which shows the positive impact on the business. It
provides the prospects about the behaviour of customers perspective about the business and
enhanced the business to acquire to new customer by trust building online.
Although technologies make the work overload causes to employees, it also enables the
people functioning within the confines of a firm to maintain work life balance. Improvisation of
network connectivity allows employees to work from home in which sometimes the process of
working hours exceeds the time limits where it dis balanced the work life together. Over the
course of time, technology has also allowed some of the large as well as small scale
organizations to create opportunity for paperless working by stressing upon flexible working
practices. This can be defined as the arrangement that is made by a company to allow its
employees to work from home via the usage of internet. By FWA, an organisation is able to
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provide ease of working and comfort to its workforce. All of this becomes possible with the
usage of technology by the employees. Further, collaborative project management and video
conferencing tools ensures that colleagues are connected with each other even if they do not
belong to similar industry. Virtual project teams can be formed by capitalising upon the usage of
technologies in an effective manner.
Thus, it can be seen that technology as well as innovation are two of the most prominent
ways through which an organisation seeks to attain a competitive advantage in market place.
They aid an enterprise to tap the market in an appealing manner such that the attention of large
number of individuals can be gained towards the unique offerings of company in a rapid manner.
The competitive advantage occupies the company’s central point of performance on a
competitive market, and innovation as well as adaptation of new technologies serve as the
sources source to obtain and consolidate it. Initially, the meaning of innovation covered only a
small part of a company’s field of activity, innovation being represented by an idea / a practice /
a product recently developed and adopted by a company. Later on, in accordance with the
amplification of the competition and perception of innovation as an important source of creation
and affirmation of the competitive advantage, one could notice the opportunity to extend the
proficiency field from the achieved products to the means to obtain such products. Adaption to
latest and emerging technologies also provides assistance to firms across the globe to cater to the
market demands and fulfil the same by leveraging the technological advancements in an
effective and efficient manner. Thus, all activities that play a part in obtaining the product within
the limits of a company have been implicated in the competitive struggle.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Battisti, E., Miglietta, N., Nirino, N. and Diaz, M.V., 2019. Value creation, innovation practice,
and competitive advantage. European Journal of Innovation Management.
Agung, N.F.A. and Darma, G.S., 2019. Opportunities and Challenges of Instagram Algorithm in
Improving Competitive Advantage. International Journal of Innovative Science and
Research Technology, 4(1), pp.743-747.
Fernando, Y., Jabbour, C.J.C. and Wah, W.X., 2019. Pursuing green growth in technology firms
through the connections between environmental innovation and sustainable business
performance: does service capability matter?. Resources, Conservation and
Recycling, 141, pp.8-20.
Nieves, J. and Osorio, J., 2019. Using information technology to achieve management
innovation. Academia Revista Latinoamericana de Administración.
Bustinza, O.F., Gomes, E., Vendrell‐Herrero, F. and Baines, T., 2019. Product–service
innovation and performance: the role of collaborative partnerships and R&D
intensity. R&D Management, 49(1), pp.33-45.
Salunke, S., Weerawardena, J. and McColl-Kennedy, J.R., 2019. The central role of knowledge
integration capability in service innovation-based competitive strategy. Industrial
Marketing Management, 76, pp.144-156.
Khan, S.Z., Yang, Q. and Waheed, A., 2019. Investment in intangible resources and capabilities
spurs sustainable competitive advantage and firm performance. Corporate Social
Responsibility and Environmental Management, 26(2), pp.285-295.
González-Blanco, J., Coca-Pérez, J.L. and Guisado-González, M., 2019. Relations between
technological and non-technological innovations in the service sector. The Service
Industries Journal, 39(2), pp.134-153.
Shan, S., Luo, Y., Zhou, Y. and Wei, Y., 2019. Big data analysis adaptation and enterprises’
competitive advantages: the perspective of dynamic capability and resource-based
theories. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 31(4), pp.406-420.
Lee, J., Suh, T., Roy, D. and Baucus, M., 2019. Emerging Technology and Business Model
Innovation: The Case of Artificial Intelligence. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology,
Market, and Complexity, 5(3), p.44.
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