Business Innovation Process

Samuel Doucet

Dr. Prenshaw

Business Innovation

17 February 2014

The Business of Innovation

What is the Innovation Process?

        The practice of conjuring creative ideas and successfully turning that idea into a potentially profitable product or concept is the result of a successful Innovation Process. The process begins when a person has a moment of insight or problem recognition. This is where the innovation process begins. After the person or company identifies the innovation process goal, (1) immersion begins. (2) Following the immersion step, idea generation begins in the process. (3) Next in the innovation process, the team begins to produce prototypes that came from ideas in the idea generation stage. Once the prototypes are made the team evaluates the feedback and efficiency of the prototypes narrowing down possibilities and good ideas from the ones that did not pass evaluation. (4) After an official product has been chosen, the innovation team must then transform the finished product or solution into a new business unit or integrate it into and existing one providing financial projections, business analysis, and product analysis. (5) The team then scales and tests the product or solution that was designed. This will give the team an educated estimate of the impact and success of the final product/solution that was created through the innovation process. (6) Lastly, if the final product/solution of the innovation process shows promise and all other steps have successfully been fulfilled, it will be launched full-fledged to the market.  

        In the Immersion stage of the innovation process the team conducts secondary research and observes the market and it’s customers. The team must “collect all available facts and knowledge about an object or experience (including its historic development), and then “deconstruct” all of that information into essential elements” (Esslinger 64). Data collected from studying market trends in the potential sector and its lead users is important, but observing the customers that inhabit that space is equally important. The observation of consumers is vital because “customers are an evergreen source of innovative ideas” and the team should be “concerned with the outcomes that customers desire” (HBR 29) rather than the specifications required to produce that outcome. These observations help the team recognize problems that can be addressed in the innovation process and ultimately help the team to create a product with value for the customer.

        Components of creativity such as: Creative thinking skills, Expertise, and Tasc motivation, play an important in the immersion stage. Creative thinking skills are attributes that deal with a person’s imagination and flexibility when approaching a solution to a problem. Both divergent and convergent thinking are needed for a successful innovation process. Creative thinkers are usually divergent because they “break away from familiar or established ways of seeing and doing” (HBR 86) due to their imagination. Creative thinking skills help provide diversity to the team by introducing a different prospective when challenging the norm. Ultimately, asking why things are the way they “makes it possible to develop insights and new ideas” (HBR 86). The creative component of Expertise can benefit the immersion process by offering superior knowledge in a specific domain. This know-how an expert brings to the table can help the team reach a solution that otherwise would have been further off or not reached at all. An example to Expertise can be seen to Thomas Edison’s creating the light bulb. He hired experts of all the industries that could benefit his innovation of the light bulb (HBR 89).