Report: Innovation and Commercialization in M&S Business Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of innovation and commercialization strategies at Marks & Spencer (M&S). It begins by defining innovation and comparing it to invention, emphasizing its importance in today's competitive market. The report then evaluates the impact of organizational vision, leadership, culture, and teamwork on fostering innovation and commercialization within M&S. It explores the 4Ps of innovation (product, process, position, and paradigm) and the use of an innovation funnel. Frugal innovation is examined as a strategy to make products more affordable and sustainable, with examples of M&S's practices. The report also covers the commercial funnel and the new product development process, highlighting how M&S translates innovative ideas into consumer-ready products. Finally, it discusses tools for protecting intellectual property and knowledge within the organization. The report utilizes M&S as a case study throughout to illustrate these concepts, providing insights into the company's business strategies and practices.

INNOVATION AND
COMMERCIALIZATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................3
OVERVIEW OF ORGANISATION .......................................................................................................3
INNOVATION AND DETERMINE ITS IMPORTANCE TO ORGANIZATIONS IN
COMPARISON WITH INVENTION......................................................................................................3
IMPACT OF ORGANIZATIONAL VISION, LEADERSHIP, CULTURE AND TEAMWORK CAN
SHAPE INNOVATION AND COMMERCIALIZATION......................................................................4
4Ps OF INNOVATION AND USE OF INNOVATION FUNNEL ........................................................5
FRUGAL INNOVATION .......................................................................................................................6
COMMERCIAL FUNNEL AND NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS .............................7
INNOVATION BUSINESS CASE .........................................................................................................8
TOOLS FOR PROTECTING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND KNOWLEDGE .........................9
REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Innovation can be defined as the process to bring changes in process or methodology which
brings more value to the services. Innovation process can be considered as the essential part of the
business process. The lack of innovative practices in business operations can make it impossible for
the organizations to sustain in the highly competitive market environment. The process of innovation
not only enables organizations to bring new ideas in their practices but also uncover new approaches
for executing their operations. The innovative concepts in business provide more opportunities for
growth and success of the company (Chun, Chung and Bang, 2015).
The report will evaluate the impact and processes involved in the innovation and
commercialization of Marks & Spencer. It will discuss the importance of innovation in M&S business
by comparing innovations and invention. The document will also evaluate the role of organizational
structure and leadership in promoting innovation within M&S. It will explore the concepts of frugal
innovation and commercial funnel through a case study of Marks & Spencer. The study will also
describe the aspects of new product development process and protection of intellectual property in
context with the above mentioned organization, i.e. M&S.
OVERVIEW OF ORGANIZATION
Marks & Spencer is one of the leading retail organizations. Its head quarter is based in United
Kingdom and provides its services all over the world. The innovative business strategies of
organization have made it possible for the company to expand its business to such a large extent. The
Marks & Spencer store deals with the home products, food items and clothing. Some stores in UK
provide only food services.
INNOVATION AND ITS COMPARISON WITH INVENTION
INNOVATION is referred as transformational process of rearrangement of continuous
restructuring and remodeling of any idea or product. It is an essential component in the technological
aspects these days for the development and designing of any existing product or service or both.
Moreover, these innovative ideas come across by exhibition of nascent industries so that organizations
can mould it into architectural framework by following up the primary distinctiveness. It also needs
competency, technical aspects with knowledge and updations about the latest trends and finances. E.g.
flat screen TV etc. Whereas, on the other hand, INVENTION is refereed as the creation of originality
and imagination by contraption of a notion into an active designing of an idea. It means creation of
something new with the help of using knowledge in new manner to build something new. This
furthermore leads to a novel generation of process, product or idea. E.g. Telpehone etc.
Marks & Spencer is a big name in the apparel industry and their marketing team is driven by
feeding on innovation and latest trends that can be perceived through employing the latest
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technologies and articulation by demand and supply of the marketplaces. It is a vital part for
differentiating innovation on the basis of fundamental science driven with expression in terms of
exponential demand in the markets to create various diversified products (van Hemert, Nijkamp and
Masurel, 2013). This company is adopting methodologies on consistent evolution of products to
incorporate their efforts with cognitive skills to produce an innovative process and product for
sustaining amongst their competitors by accessing the complementary networks and incremented
distribution channels. The linearity in this innovation process gives transparency and adoption of
procedures for developing new or existing product due to innovation effectively.
Figure 1. Linear Innovation process
CULTURE, LEADERSHIP, VISION AND TEAMWORK ON INNOVATION
AND COMMERCIALIZATION
M&S has become the epitome of innovation with commercialization at global level by
establishing themselves as one of the brands in apparel retail sector. They are known for their
exclusive designs as per seasonal and customers demands as well. The following elements have huge
impact on the organization as a whole.
Vision: Its vision to expand in all prime locations in all the countries they have been operating.
Thus, it led to shaking hands with other capitalist mindset companies for optimizing the resources and
increasing sales volume and revenue generation. In regard to commercialization, these people
understood the nuances attached with the financial gains and its effects on the complete worth.
Leadership: M&S has plans for reinventing their production team by inculcating a sense of
fashion in relation current trends and updated styles all over the world. However, they were struggling
in implementing it via commercial success (Carter and et.al., 2012). The managers and leaders at M&S
provided key points while managing the innovation model through establishment of high technology
to improve their research and development approaches.
Culture: An organization’s internal environment plays pivotal role in establishing
commercialization on vivid grounds. All M&S‘s teams are progressing for development and overall
progression in the assigned tasks, however, there is an attempt to gain profits by involving innovation
on products, services and processes. The complete prototyping stage accelerates and ends only when it
reaches the market and starts selling of products. The employees are interconnected and have
established good team work ethics which led to innovation at better pace.
Teamwork: This leads to an array of innovation that paved the path of success and financial
gains through commercialization of M&S designers’ ideas and perceptions. The sheer size of
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investment depends on the scalability and feasibility of research programs that are particularly
segmented for pure commercial gimmicks. If all employees would work in unity, it led to cost
effectiveness and time efficiency, affecting the expense son the production phase. This automatically
helps M&S administration to improve their other departments by emergence of technologies and its
timely implementation for exceptional capacities for combating competition at global map.
4Ps OF INNOVATION AND USE OF INNOVATION FUNNEL
This 4 P’s of innovation is one of the widely accepted models to identify and recognize the
parameters involved in the innovation. It is that tool which is used to bring innovation for
enhancements in business processes of Marks & Spencer. There are mainly composed of product,
process, position and paradigm. It assisted in evaluating all the probabilities and possibilities to
incubate an idea by discovering and exploring the allocated resources and materials.
Product- M&S has teams for designing, developing and executing operational activities their
purpose is to make their product or service interesting, attractive and affordable (Krishnan and
Ramachandran, 2011). They try to execute radical altercations to revolutionize their existence in the
marketplaces by going digital or parallel renovating stores layout.
Process- This involves laying out a detailed preparation of processes for hiring, supplying,
training and many more. Furthermore, this will assist in developing the stages for entre product
development by the teams and management.
Position- This area of region works on the changing procedural approach for developing the
product or service as per the demand and expectations of customers’. It emphasized on the integrated
communication channel to establish relationships between M&S customers’, employees, public,
shareholders and investors.
Paradigm- These innovation enhancements for attaining success and revenues supported M&S
to leverage this into inventing a new launching shift where they went from print to digital podiums.
They not only helped them to grow their customers’ number but also assisted in bringing changes with
risk taking.
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Figure 2. 4 P’s of Innovation
(Source: Murray, 2015)
Along with this, the innovation funnel has been used in the process development project of
M&S s that commercial point of view, the innovation can be converted viability by meeting markets’
needs and specifications. This is the simplified graphical version of structural unit which support in
screening as well a generating alternatives for product designing. Additionally, there are majorly three
challenges of this funnel such as wide mouth that infers that M&S must extend its skills and
knowledge largely by insights and data collection to invent new concepts, narrower funnel neck which
has shed light on the screening of ideas to focus on resources allocation to grab opportunities. Lastly is
the insurance of selected delivery of objectives in a project. It helps in accelerating progress in shaping
innovation chain of M&S by optimizing commercialization.
FRUGAL INNOVATION
The most advance and demanding innovation concept is the frugal innovation. This approach
aims at providing the services with efficient use of available resources. It includes the concepts like
reuse, recycle, reduction in complexity and elimination of unnecessary components involved in
business processes (Dincer, 2017). Marks & Spencer can use frugal innovation to redesign its services
and products so that its products can be made more affordable. For instance when digital technologies
become most common component of the business procedures then organization adopted online
booking and home delivery systems so that more people can afford the services of Marks & Spencer
and time and cost no longer serves as the barriers which prevent consumers from making purchasing
decision.
Frugal innovations also introduce the elements of sustainability and conservation on which
most of the business organizations are focusing. The sustainability principles such as energy
conservation, environmental protection are also becoming the key issues which need to be addressed
by the companies. If Marks & Spencer will address these issues it will not only improve the quality of
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services but will also make process cost effective and more qualitative in terms of speed. For instance
Marks & Spencer has banned the smoking in its stores to avoid fire accidents.
Similarly the refrigerators which emit high energy are also avoided by the organization. These
innovative practices have reduced the operational cost and reduce the accident probabilities due to
smoke. In context with the current advancements of technology Marks & Spencer can adopt more
effective frugal innovations which will help organization to generate more profits. For instance the
organization can explore the new methods for packaging and shipping the materials. The current
packaging used by the company is not environment supportive and also cost to greater operational cost
(Abdul Razak, Murray and Roberts, 2014). If company will shift to packaging from degradable
packing then along with reduction in cost the company will also be known as the organization working
for environment protection and sustainability. This can be beneficial for the promotion of organization.
Frugal innovations are also called constraint based innovation and reverse innovation. The
primary concept which can be used by Marks & Spencer through this approach is to customize
technological products can be produced by the company at low prices and for new emerging market
segments. Though frugal innovation is considered as the restrictive and expensive process but it can
bring long term benefits to the organization by considering the principles of sustainability.
COMMERCIAL FUNNEL AND NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
Commercialization can be defined as the process through which organization can translates its
innovative ideas into final product or services which can add value to company. Commercial funnel
identify the various stages through which the innovation can bring the consumers (What is marketing
funnel and why it is important, 2017). For example when the concept of online order booking and
home delivery system was introduced by Marks & Spencer then it was not easy to get approval and
acceptance of all customers with same extent. There were some consumers who welcomed the
innovation but on the other there are customers who still prefer to make purchases through physical
stores only instead of these online stores.
Thus commercial funnel help origination to identify its potential customers which can promote
the commercialization instead of keeping the innovation a mere ideology and concept. The
commercial funnel structure within organization will help to formulate and present innovation in a
way that it attracts consumers to know more details regarding the concept. It can be achieved by
suitable marketing strategies or creation of needs (Sengoku, 2015). Once the target audience is
motivated the organization makes attempts to deliver them innovative services with expected level of
quality. The quality level maintenance is necessary for successful implementation of the innovation.
The employees of Marks & Spencer use new product development (NPD) policies so that
customized products can be delivered to the consumers. This development policies analyses various
aspects which can affect the success of innovative products. The foremost approach of this policy is to
identify the need of innovation. Before bringing any product to market Marks & Spencer always
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conduct research that if in market is there any similar product available or not and if it is available then
how organization can bring changes to it so that it can be more effective (Do and et.al., 2015). NPD
approach also evaluates the fund availability and associated risk with the product. The failure to meet
the objectives of innovative product will affect the brand value of company and thus its sales
performance can severely affected. Marks & Spencer also discuss the process and plan to its
stakeholders before directly bringing new product into market.
It is difficult for the organization to execute the new product development method and other
innovations. However, Marks & Spencer effectively manages the challenges. The organization recruits
highly skilled human resources which always brings creativity in their work. The creativity leads to
innovations. The leaders of organization has good communication network with their team members
so staff members of Marks & Spencer are always open to suggest and adopt the innovation (Planko
and et.al., 2017). To encourage the employees for promoting innovative culture the organization use
feed-backs and motivation. These tools overcome the barriers associated with communication and
creativity. The experienced authorities of organization always encourage the suggestions from
stakeholders and never hesitate to bring the procedures which can improve the quality of services. This
flexibility in the organizational culture of Marks & Spencer is one of the key factor which helps
organization to overcome the challenges in introducing innovations.
INNOVATION BUSINESS CASE
Marks & Spencer must use innovations for exploring the possible opportunities leading to its
development. The innovations will increase the sales as well as the customer base of organization. The
innovation implementation can result due to situational demand or as a result of rapidly changing
business environment. For instance when company realizes that smoking can bring fire hazards then
all stores of Marks & Spencer were declared smoking free. Several other innovations such as use of
energy efficient lighting, packaging through biodegradable materials can increase the financial
benefits of organization. However, in order to bring the innovation into practices the organization must
consider the resources especially financial resources.
Sources for accessing funds:
Marks & Spencer can access funds from various sources for supporting its innovations. The
organization can use external as well as internal sources. The higher brand value of the organization
can help to seek debt financing. M&S can seek loan from public institution or banks. For the highly
efficient innovations it can also receive funds from sponsorship or other investors. The innovations of
organization which are focused on public welfare can also get financial support from government
subsidies. Along with these external sources the diverse capital and internal assets can also be used by
the organization for funding purpose.
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TOOLS FOR PROTECTING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND
KNOWLEDGE
Marks & Spencer cannot protect its innovations without using protection tools which guards
the knowledge resources and intellectual properties of organization. For example if after a lot of hard
work organization plans to introduce a new product but before it actually present the idea in front of
its customers if other retailer stores launches the product then it will bring huge loss to the company.
Along with the time and fund resources the company will also lose the opportunity to gain new
success levels with the proposed product or innovation. Thus, it is very essential for the organization
to protect its intellectual properties (IP). There are various tools such as copyright, trademark, patents
and design rights. For instance if Marks & Spencer innovates any new strategy and concept then it is
essential for the organization to make it patent so that other competitive groups cannot steal or copy
the idea. Similarly, the tag line, name and appearance of company logo can also be protected by
copyrights and trademark. The copyright will prohibits other business firms or individuals to use these
intellectual assets without permission of company.
M&S must efficiently and carefully employ the use of trademarks, copyright and other
intellectual property rights.
Copyrights: he copyright or patent tools also enable company to protect its resources and sensitive
information from unauthorized access (Maritz and Donovan, 2015). The patent and design rights are
very crucial for the company so that other individuals are not able to sale products in the name of
company for fraud purpose or for misleading the people.
Patent: The design rights protection will prohibit the other individuals and organizations to use the
brand name, logo or symbol of the company. The right will allow Marks & Spencer to take strict legal
actions against others who use organizational design without their permission. Similarly, if
organization innovate any practice or strategy discovered by it then it can take patent of the process so
that other companies do not copy the approach or method.
Trademarks: This tool enable M&S to prohibit other individuals or organizations from using the
brand name, logo and unique ideas associated with the organization. If M&S will not use this tool
then the misleading use of organizational assets can create significant damage to the overall
performance of company.
ROI- it is used to evaluate the return on investment. It is always calculated in percentage. To calculate
ROI there is specific formula followed which is as follows :-
ROI- (gain from investment – cost of investment) / cost of investment
For example –
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Amount invested = 50,000
Return gained- 75000
ROI= 75000-50000/75000
= 25000/75000
= 33.33%
CONCLUSION
From the report it can be concluded that organization cannot explore the growth opportunities
without making its business practices innovative. The report has explained the role of innovation in
achieving the success objectives and the role of organization culture to enhance the innovations. It has
also explained impact of leadership in shaping the innovation and thus in making the business process
more effective. It is also observed that organizations are using innovation mix elements and innovation
funnel for developing a culture of innovative practices. The document has analyzed the role of frugal
innovation in helping organization to sustain their growth.
From the discussion in report it has been also evaluated that companies are encouraging the use
of commercial funnel so that innovation and commercialization can be achieved with highest
efficiency. The report has also explained the various tools which are used by the business groups to
protect their intellectual properties so that their innovations can bring the desired outputs. Hence it can
be concluded that for achieving the benefits of innovation organizations must consider all aspect of
commercialization and innovation before exploring and adopting new innovative practices.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Abdul Razak, A. and Murray, P.A., 2017. Innovation strategies for successful commercialisation
in public universities. International Journal of Innovation Science, 9(3), pp.296-314.
Abdul Razak, A., Murray, P.A. and Roberts, D., 2014. Open innovation in universities: The
relationship between innovation and commercialisation. Knowledge and Process
Management, 21(4), pp.260-269.
Carter, L. and et.al., 2012. Best practices in leadership development and organization change:
how the best companies ensure meaningful change and sustainable leadership (Vol. 18).
John Wiley & Sons.
Chun, D., Chung, Y. and Bang, S., 2015. Impact of firm size and industry type on R&D
efficiency throughout innovation and commercialisation stages: evidence from Korean
manufacturing firms. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 27(8), pp.895-909.
Dincer, I., 2017. Importance of research, innovation and commercialisation for technological
success. International Journal of Research, Innovation and Commercialisation. 1(1),
pp.8-22.
Do, H., Mazzarol, T., and et.al., 2015. SME owner-managers’ anticipated returns to
commercialisation: the influence of organisational factors.
Kedron, P. and Bagchi-Sen, S., 2017. Limits to policy-led innovation and industry development
in US biofuels. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 29(5), pp.486-499.
Krishnan, V. and Ramachandran, K., 2011. Integrated product architecture and pricing for
managing sequential innovation. Management Science. 57(11). pp.2040-2053.
Maritz, A. and Donovan, J., 2015. Entrepreneurship and innovation: Setting an agenda for
greater discipline contextualisation. Education+ Training.57(1). pp.74-87.
Planko, J., Cramer, J., and et.al., 2017. Combining the technological innovation systems
framework with the entrepreneurs’ perspective on innovation. Technology Analysis &
Strategic Management. 29(6). pp.614-625.
Sengoku, S., 2015. Innovation and commercialisation of induced pluripotent stem cells. Stem
cells in regenerative medicine: Science, regulation and business strategies. pp.423-446.
Tsai, S.P., 2015. Dynamic marketing capabilities and radical innovation
commercialisation. International journal of technology management. 67(2-4). pp.174-
195.
van Hemert, P., Nijkamp, P. and Masurel, E., 2013. From innovation to commercialization
through networks and agglomerations: analysis of sources of innovation, innovation
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capabilities and performance of Dutch SMEs. The Annals of Regional Science. 50(2).
pp.425-452.
Online
Murray, I., 2015. THE INNOVATION FALLACY. [Online]. Available through:<
http://www.house51.co.uk/mishmash/the-innovation-fallacy/>.
What is marketing funnel and why it is important, 2017 [Online] accessed through <
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