Innovation Report for Digital Marketing

This report delves into the significance of innovation in the context of digital marketing, specifically focusing on the firm Jellyfish. It outlines various tasks related to innovation, including its importance compared to invention, the role of leadership and teamwork in fostering innovation, and the application of the innovation funnel in new product development. The report emphasizes the need for continuous innovation to maintain a competitive edge and discusses tools for protecting intellectual property. Through detailed analysis and examples, the report illustrates how innovation can drive business success.

INNOVATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Innovation and its importance to firm in comparison to invention........................................1
P2 Vision, lead3ership culture and team work role in shaping innovation and
innovationisation.........................................................................................................................2
TASK 2 ...........................................................................................................................................3
P3 4p's of innovation and innovation funnel use........................................................................3
P4 Developing frugal innovation................................................................................................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
P5 Importance of innovation funnel and application of NPD for innovationisation..................7
P6 Innovation business case and ways to access funding..........................................................8
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................10
P7 Tools for developing, retaining and protect knowledge and intellectual property..............10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
In the present working environment where there is a lot of competition, it is important for
firms either big or small to introduce innovative ideas, products or services on regular basis. It
helps them to obtain innovation benefits from their business. Innovation provides assistance to
company’s sustainable growth (Bogers and West, 2012). Bigger firms such as Apple and Virgin
group set a perfect example how innovation can take them forward. These two firms make
several changes in its products and structure so as to have competitive edge over others. To
understand the importance of innovation in context of Small Business Enterprise, the firm,
Jellyfish has been chosen. It deals in the business of digital marketing which includes SEO, pay
per click, etc. It provides assistance to many clients across the globe with its innovative digital
marketing ideas. This report highlights the need of innovation and commercialisation in business
operations. Also, it studios the role of new product development in achieving high level of
customer satisfaction.
TASK 1
P1. Innovation and its importance to firm in comparison to invention
Term innovation is used when there is an ongoing process that leads to addition of certain
new things in the existing product of firm. It is done to make changes in accordance with the
requirements of business. Somehow, it can be said that professional creativity leads to
innovation. Being in digital marketing field, Jellyfish appreciates the role of innovation in a
successful business. Citing the example of Apple, it can be seen that how smaller changes in
products like Ipod and Iphone has made this company one of the biggest in industry as
innovation helps in attracting consumers at a large scale.
On the other hand, invention is creation of process or launch of product for the first time
in market. Invention helps the firm to enter in new areas of business. Invention has much larger
scope of providing profits than innovation as it has flavours of uniqueness (Chun and et al.,
2015). Jellyfish understood the importance of invention and innovation in expansion of market
share. It involves procedures that are replicated on paper, tested using trials and errors
experimenting with taking it to the market.
It is essential for companies of smaller scale like Jellyfish to make continuous innovation
in their products which will help them in attracting more clients and expanding market share.
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Smaller firms face a lot of competition from bigger companies hence, it becomes more important
for them to innovate ideas in their business. Cited company has to innovate marketing software
and new website design that is needed to be inculcated as per their client’s requirement.
Importance of innovation can be understood through following points:
 Competitive advantage: It is important to have competitive advantage over rivals in
order to increase profit in the market which is being felicitated by innovative ideas.
 Establishing better methods of business: In order to expand in terms of business reach,
it is important for firms to establish new methods of business which help them to provide
quality services and products (Datta, Jessup and Reed, 2011). It also helps organisational
functions especially marketing in making its activities effective.
Invention and innovation are two separate thing and their differences could be understood
by following points:
Innovation Invention
It is a process of making required changes in
the existing services and products of the
company.
It is process of bringing new idea in reality
which did not had its existence before.
It is process of adding into existing product. It is process of creating new product.
It can be linked with numerous products and
services at once.
It is related to single product or process
Tactical, strategic, marketing and technical
skills are required.
For invention scientific skills needs to be
present.
It is related to every function of firm. It is generally done by Research and
development department.
P2. Vision, leadership culture and team work role in shaping innovation and commercialisation
For any business innovation and its commercialisation is essential. Jellyfish is a small
firm and needs to make time to time changes in its services which it offers to its clients.
Innovation always helps company in achieving its objectives smoothly. There are various factors
such as vision, mission, work culture that adds to innovation and innovation.
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 Vision: It is important for the firm to have vision as it act as a torch bearer for making
innovative plans. It is initiator of innovative process. Innovation and commercialisation is
proceeded by vision (Datta, Mukherjee and Jessup, 2015). Visionary approach of Steve
jobs of helped Apple in taking company on the path of innovation.
 Leadership: Decision making is the role of leader in any organisation. When concerned
with SBE role of leaders become more important as there are very less levels in the
organisation. Leaders of Virgin Atlantic involved everyone in the process so that each
employee with appropriate set of skill can come up as a leader in innovative ideas.
Leadership style felicitates innovation by providing environment that is competitive
which initiates the process of innovation.
 Culture: It is a factor that cannot be ignored while underlining innovation in the business
processes. Jellyfish deals in digital marketing for its clients so adding new technological
features becomes important for the company. Employee skill development and training
culture fastens the speed of innovation. Apple and virgin group has superb culture that
supports innovation.
 Team work: In the modern era of business innovation cannot be achieved without
working as a team. It makes process reliable and consumes less time (Eesley, Hsu and
Roberts, 2014). Distributed man power reduces the efficiency and can have chances of
failing in between.
Innovation and commercialisation are the core processes of firm's growth. If leadership
implements innovation in correct manner then these changes could be accepted easily. Apple
culture of Innovative thinking helped in achieving higher profits. Virgin's innovative process
became faster because of its style of leadership.
TASK 2
P3. 4p's of innovation and use of innovation funnel
Innovation is essential for every firm irrespective of sector it belongs to or scale in which
it is operating. SME like Jellyfish needs innovative thinking so as increase demand of firm's
product and services in the marketplace. For implementing innovation there are 4p's that can be
used to achieve results in a desired way.
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 Product: It is important for firm's to add features into their products as per the market
demand. These products needs to be developed on regular intervals so as to have
competitive edge over other competitors. Products are the final output that is obtained at
the end of any innovation process which helps in obtaining firm's objective.
 Process: It is always beneficial to incorporate innovative process that is specific. Several
processes are undertaken by firms for changing ideas into final products using
appropriate raw materials. Innovation process needs to be of higher quality so as to
produce products that are distinct and is upgraded significantly (Ettlie and Rosenthal,
2012). Jellyfish has implemented many technological innovations to help their clients.
 Position: It is one of the basic ingredient of innovation. For Jellyfish it is important to
understand that for which market product has been developed and the places where it will
be launched. Innovation is implemented citing the market that firm hopes to acquire.
Cited company must understand the perception of market that includes clients, business
partners or stakeholders thinking about operational activities of firm. In today's global
business scenario it is essential to understand company's stand in market and the type of
product they offer.
 Paradigm: It is understood as alterations in the ways in which anything is done in a firm.
Innovation's dependence on paradigm shows its importance. For example Jellyfish offers
there services in many ways like presenting proper presentation to them or formulating
best possible marketing tool for them. These are changes that are radical in nature and
may not always account to effective business.
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Innovation funnel and its use:
While negotiating with the process of new product development this is a strategy that is
used by firms. There are various factors that needs to be observed by marketing function that
starts from generating product idea to test them and ultimately making it available for users
(Huizingh, 2011). Several uses of innovation funnel is as follows:
 Opportunity assessment: By doing market analysis various data and information are
obtained after their evaluation opportunities can be accessed. It also includes
understanding of firm's resources and assessing available opportunities for new services
of Jellyfish.
 Insight based ideation: Market and customer insight assists company in identifying link
between present opportunities and the strategies made by the company. Idea needs to be
made after in sighting only. This is achieved by conducting surveys to determine market
aspects.
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Illustration 1: 4 p's of innovation

 Conceptualisation: Actual concept is derived after considering ideas of various distinct
stages. It involves different attributes of Product development such as packaging,
advertising, copy, mock-ups etc.
 Evaluation and Bench marking: It is a step where testing of different concepts are
done. It includes user testing as well as choice modelling (Kolychev and Prokhorov,
2015). In this process identification and evaluation is done so as to understand the areas
where improvement needs to be done.
 Go/No Go: It is a crucial stage in which officials decides whether to go with the idea of
making changes in the product or not. Executive make this choice after evaluating
product advantage and disadvantage and its innovation benefit that can obtained from it.
Benchmarking helps to apply most appropriate method for the process of innovation in
order to achieve desired results.
 Launch: It is last stage in innovation funnel where company decides to make product
available for the market (Snow, and et al., 2011). This is done after considering all above
stages and factors that will influence its success. In this stage idea is converted into
desired results.
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Illustration 2: Innovation Funnel

P4. Developing frugal innovation
It is underpinned to innovation in new business models, designing of existing products
and reconfiguring value series so that it can be made available to the consumers who were
previously unable to afford such kind of products. It is a tool that is not only helpful in
innovation but is also effective in invention process. It is a concept that is used by the firms to
determine new thinking for product development (Thore, 2012). Re innovation of older products
by making considerable changes is also helped by this concept. Jellyfish adopted several older
innovative ideas from other markets and made it a reality.
Frugal innovation development:
 Opportunities in market: There are several opportunities that are available in market
according to which product needs to be developed. To understand this market analysis is
done by the firms. Analysing market gives idea about scope of product success that is to
be launched and hence Jellyfish can grab these opportunities (Van Hemert, Nijkamp and
Masurel, 2013). While developing product, it is understood that company is subjected to
be under pressure of failure if market is not being analysed properly.
 Resources: In running of firms there is a limitation of availability of resources. It is fact
that SME has very less resource, so their optimum utilisation becomes more important.
Having quality resources enriches the final product quality and customers are provided
with better options.
 Innovation funnel: For new product development this process is being inculcated. It
initiates with idea and reaches to final product. Frugal innovation change impacts
innovation funnel as well.
It has two part, first is linked with products and other is associated with problems that
need to be solved. Jellyfish used this innovation which is affiliated to new technology based
problem solving (Aarikka-Stenroos, Sandberg and Lehtimäki, 2014). Prime ways to use this
innovation starting with solving issues and not with products. Some of the steps that can used are
as follows:
 Forming idea for innovation
 Viewing the difficulties that is to be faced while implementing this idea
 Idea testing
 Internal analysis about resources and its efficient use
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 Analysing market to understand scope of product in the market
 Product innovation
 Product's performance check
TASK 3
P5. Importance of innovation funnel and application of NPD for innovationisation
One of the major prospects of using innovation funnel is to develop new products. For
selling their product and making profit out of it, importance of innovation funnel is to be
understood by the firm (Bently and Sherman, 2014). Products and services offered by company
needs new innovations so as to satisfy customers by fulfilling their demands. Innovation funnel
assists Jellyfish in overcoming competition and becoming one of the leading SBE in the industry.
Cited company uses several procedures which are innovative in order to present its services in
the market. Steps of New Product Development process is as follows:
 Idea generation: For innovating new product, there must a proper idea. It provides blue
print for later steps. It helps to develop product in sorted manner and can be completed
effectively.
 Screening of idea: Any idea cannot lead to success. For making it successful it needs to
be screened from every aspect and select idea which is best suited for product
development.
 Development and testing: When screening and selection of idea is done then developing
product procedure starts and needs to be tested at every level of its completion.
 Product development: After testing is done product needs to be developed as per the
market demand.
 Market testing: It is always mandatory for organisations to test market it assist in
making innovation a success.
 Innovationisation: This is most important process as innovation needs to be
innovationised in order to make profit (Drahos, 2016). For this appropriate planning,
pricing and marketing needs to be implemented.
 Launch: When product is developed after completion of every step it needs to be
launched properly so that its new must be available to most of the people. After launching
it is important to review the status of product.
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P6. Innovation business case and ways to access funding
Innovation business case is necessary for making effective plans. Various factors are to
be considered and identified so that future business operations cannot get affected.
Mission Statement: It is firm's declaration in written about their goals and objectives. It should
not change with time. Jellyfish's mission statement considers:
 Crucial factors of firm.
 New services and product will be served to which market section.
 Providing direction for whole firm.
Proposal statement: It is a statement that includes objective and purpose of the firm. It also
incorporates investigations that creates key information (May, 2013). Primary information
related to improvement in product and its benefits. Jellyfish's proposal statement propose that the
firm is planning to add new attributes and tools to its design of digital marketing that will be used
for benefits of customer.
Types of innovation:
 Incremental: New features are added with old ones.
 Disruptive: It is possible that new feature added may be inferior to those which which
was earlier in use.
 Architectural: Sometime proven features are being added so as to increase the market
base.
 Radical: It sometimes leads to new industries as dimension of changes is large.
Jellyfish generally has implemented innovation of type incremental. As it can be seen it
in its previous few products where certain new features or technology was added with the old
one as per clients demand (Micheli and et al., 2012). Using this type of innovation has certain
benefits and it is illustrated by following points:
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Sources 1: Product life cycle, 2017

 Alterations in existing features or technology is not necessary.
 It saves money as costing is done for additional feature that is to be added.
 It saves time from getting wasted.
Measures the innovation success
It is crucial for the Jellyfish to evaluate and monitor their existing products in terms of
their status i.e. success or failure. For this effective methodologies needs to be used for
evaluating its performance. Success or failure understanding of various products is necessary in
order to determine mood of the market and develop products in future accordingly. By
comparing with past performance present status can be evaluated.
Ways to fund innovation
There are several ways of funding innovation, some of them are as follows:
 Credit reserve with company: From previously made business credits, company can use
some cash reserves so as to fund its new innovation plans (Williams, 2013). It is one the
best methods of funding innovation projects as they are themselves responsible for any
kinds of loses. Bigger firms like Apple or Virgin Atlantic follow this ways.
 Bank and financial institutions: If bank found idea to be innovative they fund
innovations projects by providing loans. Amount given for loans depends on firms past
history, its revenue generation capacity and its market strength.
 Investors: These are certain people who invests in innovative projects. They offer money
by buying some shares of the company and earns profit by firm's operation.
 Government funding: If government found innovative projects to be in welfare of the
people, it provides funds at lower rate of interest.
Measures to check effectiveness
 Feedback from customers
 Market analysis before implementing new innovations.
TASK 4
P7. Tools for developing, retaining and protecting knowledge and intellectual property
There are several tools that are present for developing, retaining and protecting
knowledge and intellectual property. Protecting intellectual property right is necessary for the
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