Innovation and Commercialisation Report for Backbone Connect Company

This report, prepared for Backbone Connect, a tech-based SME, addresses the critical aspects of innovation and commercialization within the company. The report begins by differentiating between invention and innovation and explaining their importance to Backbone Connect, drawing examples from case studies. It then explores how organizational vision, leadership, culture, and teamwork can shape innovation and commercialization. The report further explains different types of innovation, specifically the 4Ps of the innovation funnel and how Backbone Connect can develop frugal innovation. The report proceeds to discuss the process required to commercialize innovation, including the application of the commercial funnel and New Product Development (NPD). Building an innovation business case and ways to access funding are also included. Finally, the report evaluates methods for protecting ideas, including knowledge and intellectual property, offering practical examples for Backbone Connect. The report aims to guide Backbone Connect in embedding a culture of innovation and commercialization, crucial for its competitiveness in the market.

UNIT 8
INNOVATION AND COMMERCIALISATION
1

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Task 1.........................................................................................................................................4
LO1: Explaining the context for innovation and determining the difference between invention
and innovation:...........................................................................................................................4
P1: Explain innovation and its importance to employees of Backbone Connect, with
examples from the given case study in comparison with invention:.........................................4
P2: Explain to employees of Backbone connect how organisational vision, leadership, culture
and teamwork can shape innovation and commercialisation, with supporting references from
the given case study:..................................................................................................................5
Task 2.........................................................................................................................................6
LO2: Explain the different types of innovation to employees of Backbone Connect:..............6
P3: Explaining the 4Ps of innovation funnel to examine and shaping innovative ideas to
employees of Backbone Connect:..............................................................................................6
P4: Explaining how Backbone Connect can develop frugal innovation....................................7
Task 3.........................................................................................................................................8
LO3: Discussing the process required to commercialise innovation in Backbone Connect in
market with practical examples:.................................................................................................8
P5: Explaining the importance of the commercial funnel and the application of New Product
Development (NPD) processing for commercialisation to employees of Backbone Connect:. 8
P6. Building an Innovation Business Case including ways to access funding:.........................9
Task 4:......................................................................................................................................10
LO 4: Evaluating the range of methods for protecting ideas and understanding their
advantages and disadvantages..................................................................................................10
P7 Evaluating the different tools that Backbone Connect Company can use to develop, retain
and protect knowledge and intellectual property with practical examples where necessary...10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................11
Reference List:.........................................................................................................................12
2

Introduction
The innovation and commercialisation is for those organisations who intend to bring
innovations to their company. Innovation is often misunderstood as invention but there is lot
of difference between the two. Invention is defined as the creation of a product or a process
for the first time while innovation is related to improving an existing product or process. The
innovations may include technological, engineering, design and scientific components and
can arise from identifying and researching the problems related to the organisations that need
to be solved. In today’s competitive market, different organisations are very critical in
innovating their processes and products in order to remain competitive in the market.
In this scenario, the learner is appointed as the CEO of a small organisation (SME)
naming Backbone Connect Company and responsible to embed commercialisation and
innovation in this company culture within next 9-12 months in order to the benefit of
Backbone Connect Company. For this, the learner will undertake several methods like
explaining the context for innovation and determining the difference between invention and
innovation, elaborating the different types of innovations, discussing the process required to
commercialise innovation, and evaluating the range of methods for protecting ideas and also
understanding their advantages and disadvantages.
3

Task 1
LO1: Explaining the context for innovation and determining the difference between
invention and innovation:
P1: Explain innovation and its importance to employees of Backbone Connect, with
examples from the given case study in comparison with invention:
Annacchino (2007, p.554), opined that, innovation is breaking away from old ideas and
conventions and converting ideas into execution, which results in beautiful products that can
change a particular way of thinking. The needs of innovation arise from the increasing
demand of customers who become bored with old products or conventional concepts.
Therefore, innovation always aims at the mental satisfaction of the customers though it will
be not unwise to comment that most of the innovations were the brainchild of world-changing
thoughts, which has nothing to do with consumer satisfaction. The companies simply wanted
to make the world a better place to live and for that, they invented products, which will cater
the productive needs of the consumers. So, it is clear that an innovation always has a
particular purpose and that purpose is often giving the world an easier and better way to live.
Another point should be made here that innovation could often be something that was not
totally unknown to the community. The very concept of the invented product may exist. In
the words of Bicen and Johnson (2015, p.280), innovation tries to simplify the concept by
giving it a revolutionary touch. The upside down change in the aspect of the particular
product requires a great amount of imaginative power from the creator, who may be a person
or a company but the creator should have that vision to look into the future and should clearly
understand people’s demand.
Backbone Connect is a Tech-based SME, based in UK, which was founded in 2008.
The company provides internet access, wide area networks, and colocation services to the
business farms of UK. It is also one of the fastest growing data centre partner farm in central
London. The company operates through a number of Tier III data centres in the United
Kingdom, which includes Level 3 data centres in Central London. It also operates through
Global Switch 1 and 2. As there are a large number of tech-based SMEs that are speeding up
their business in London, our company should not cease its creative and innovative ideas
because that will help the company to keep its business alive in the market and will help the
4

company to sustain. The company should take clue from the business of Apple Inc and Virgin
Group to understand how a company can achieve premium customer base only through
innovation and their skilful commercialisation in the consumer funnel.
5

P2: Explain to employees of Backbone connect how organisational vision, leadership,
culture and teamwork can shape innovation and commercialisation, with supporting
references from the given case study:
Morgesonet al. (2012, p.40) stressed that, organisational vision, leadership, teamwork
and culture are the four key elements, which shapes the path of an innovation. Vision is the
most important factor among the four. The company’s vision to look into the future demands
or the company’s vision to set the future for the customers is the key element in the making
of a new product. A vision to change the world, a vision to make better, user friendly and
productive goods is the driving force behind any innovation. An enthusiastic and legendary
leader who can motivate his employees to touch the future should lead the idea or the vision.
Then comes the part of team role and work management. An efficient team can transform the
vision into reality by their hard work and passion to do something new. In Belbin’s theory, an
ideal team should distribute the work among the team members and should consists of nine
types of employees, namely, resource investigator, team-worker, coordinator, plant, evaluator
or monitor, specialist, implementer, shaper and finisher. Each of them is skilled in different
aspects of a task and their collaboration can make the product outcome swifter.
An example of visionary leadership, teamwork and management can be found in
Apple’s revolutionary digital music player iPod. iPod was launched under Apple’s line up of
personal digital products. Back in 2001, when iPod was launched, personal digital products
market was crowded with digital cameras, camcorders and PDAs or pagers. Portable music
player was not a very popular item back then. Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a vision that the
clunky and useless portable music players should be replaced with portable music players,
which would be lightweight, full of functionality and should have a large storage capacity.
Thus, iPod was born from this vision and within a decade, it changed the way people listen to
music on the go. Steve Jobs was a perfectionist and he rejected a number of prototypes of
iPod but his team never gave up and ultimately came out with the world’s smallest but most
powerful music player. Pellikka and Pellikka (2012, p.229) noticed that, the visionary idea, a
legendary leader and an unwavering team spirit made the world’s highest selling portable
music player.
6

Task 2
LO2: Explain the different types of innovation to employees of Backbone Connect:
P3: Explaining the 4Ps of innovation funnel to examine and shaping innovative ideas to
employees of Backbone Connect:
An innovation funnel like any other funnel narrows down the inputs to make the final
output. An innovation starts with a large set of ideas and eventually the ideas are cut short to
make the final product. This is like a funnel, which narrows down the ideas into a trimmed
down concrete concept. There are 4 Ps in an innovation funnel paradigm, position, process
and product. Sohmen (2013, p.11) noticed that, the first process is paradigm or paradigm
shift. In this process, the company thinks of something that can change the idea of a pre
existing product into something new and innovative. The idea should be out of the box and
fresh. The idea can contain conventional values but will never stick to the conventional
principles. A paradigm shift of thought and ideas happen in this stage. The next level is the
positioning of the product, which helps the company to determine the position of the product
in the current range of products the company offers. For example, iTunes was introduced to
let the people listen to their favourite music without downloading the actual file. This was
positioned in the Apple’s web based services like iCloud and Apple Pay. Once the company
sets the position of the product, it tries to turn the idea into reality by entering in the process
stage.
In the words of Morgeson et al. (2012, p.40), the process stage is the most important
in the funnel and it does the main function of narrowing down of the ideas. In this regard,
Backbone Connect can take a clue from Virgin group that how the process of innovation
should be done. Virgin takes the innovative ideas and narrows down them into a number of
categories. Among the categories if not anything goes with the current process of an existing
company then the proposal is sent to the corporate development department for a detailed
review. The corporate development wing analyse the idea very carefully and gives the green
signal if the idea is fully compatible with the company’s business strategies. Then the idea is
executed into action. Virgin also experiments with the taken idea so that the idea can be
proven more productive in a long run.
7

[Refer to Appendix 1]
The process of product development ultimately leads to the making of a product or execution
of an idea. The final product or action is very different from the resources gathered because
during the process of funnelling every unnecessary idea and function is trimmed down.
8

P4: Explaining how Backbone Connect can develop frugal innovation:
As opined by Urbancová (2013, p.50), frugal innovation is very important for a
company because through frugal innovation or frugal engineering a company aims at
decreasing the amount of complexities in a product development process. It means
simplifying the process of making a product. Complexity indicates the number of steps in the
product development and how complex each step is to perform to get the desired result. A
company can save a large amount of wages if it follows the method of frugal innovation. The
less amount of complexity in product development means the consumed time will also
decrease and that will result in a faster product making and delivery.
Backbone Connect is a tech SME that provides connectivity solutions to its clients.
Connectivity is the most important factor today in growing a business. They manage their
networks for business and public sector organisations. According to Cornish et al. (2013,
p.58), as the company works on managing business networks and communication, they
should try to invent such a common platform trough which they can connect all the clients.
Another method for frugal innovation should be introducing an Android App and a windows
phone, which can be accessed from any device. The company has an iPhone App already but
keeping in mind the large percentage of Smartphone market which android has grabbed, an
android app will be much useful to get in touch with the farm 24x7. The company should try
to develop such a technique, which will encompass all the data centre techniques (Tier III,
Level 3, Global switch 1 and 2) into one. This step will make the company to perform in a
hassle free way.
There are six principle of frugal innovation that would be applied in the organisation:
Find opportunity in adversity: The organisation should reframe the issues that are occurring.
With this analyse the threats and try to convert them into opportunity.
Do more with less: The organisation should make best possible use of the available
information and data and resources to find best solution.
Think and act flexibly: Use the way of improvisation instead of rigidity
Keep it simple: even if the problem is complex make it easy instead of finding various
alternatives
9

Include the margin: Take the feedbacks from the customer and tell them to participate in
problem solving approach
Follow your heart: At the end, be innovative and courageous to use the idea that is put
forward.
10

Task 3
LO3: Discussing the process required to commercialise innovation in Backbone
Connect in market with practical examples:
P5: Explaining the importance of the commercial funnel and the application of New
Product Development (NPD) processing for commercialisation to employees of
Backbone Connect:
Zakic et al. (2012, p.20) opined that, a commercial funnel is a special type of
marketing technique which is customer oriented. The commercial funnel is designed from the
viewpoint of the customers. The theory of commercial funnel tries to explain the theory of
customer behaviour and their purchase patterns. The commercial funnel is a critical process,
which involve a number of steps. The very first step is the launch of a new product in the
market by a company. The goal of the company is to market the product in such a way,
whichcan attract the prospective customers. Once the customer is attracted to the product, he
or she feels interested in purchasing the product. The next step is the purchase of the product
by the customer. The purchased product must please the customer with the quality because
that will lead to another purchase by the customer. Therefore, it is very important to market a
product in such a way, which can attract the customers to make a purchase. In the context of
Backbone Connect, which provides the networking and data platform solutions, the company
should come up with a common platform for all its services and should try to bring the data
centres in one place so they can operate their entire business more efficiently.
Another innovative technique can help the company to attract its customers. The
company can upgrade its servers to better ones because a faster server means faster
connectivity and enterprise network solutions and in this competitive market,every company
looks for a faster and better connectivity option. NPD or new product development is a part
of innovation where the innovation comes through a new product that is fresh in the market.
A new product development strategy is mainly divided into eight steps – Idea generation,
idea screening, development of concept and testing them, business analysis, product
development, test marketing, commercialisation and launch of the product. Any new product,
which is developed by Apple, goes through these steps before finally become available in the
stores.
11

The funnel concept is important in its application as it used to filter the material often
with the increment sieve or filter paper. Different organisation uses funnel in different ways
like cooks use the funnel to transfer the liquids, herbs, mixtures powder into the bottle or
containers so that wastage can be minimised. In development and commercialization, funnel
concept is important as it first filters the product after preparation and then product is
introduced at the commercial level. Filtration is also done by using various tools and
techniques and equipments.
12