What Is Innovation?

What is Innovation?

Generally, we define Innovation as people who implement new ideas that create value.

However, innovation is above all a frame of mind. A process which leads people to search at every level an improvement in terms of products, services, processes, technologies or organizations.

Indeed, there are 3 degrees of Innovation: Improvement (improving a feature/service), Sustaining (adding a feature/service) and Disruptive (creation of a new product/service).

Moreover, we can define Innovation in 4 sub-types:

• Invention which corresponds to the creation of a new product, service or process (ex: Computer)

• Extension which corresponds to a new use of existing product, service or process (ex: Mc Donald's)

• Duplication which is a creative replication of existing concept (ex: Wal-Mart)

• Synthesis which is a combination of existing concepts into new use (Ex: Fed Ex)

Thus, for many companies, innovation is a way to be more efficient in order to offer the best product to their customers. In fact, to be innovative is the best solution to be competitive. It is a question of offering to the market, added values compared with the proposals of the other actors on this market. It is a question of seducing the customer, of proving to him its capacity to bring him elements of innovation in order to gain its loyalty.

In this race to the innovation, the ability of the company to anticipate the needs of its customers is essential. Companies manage to anticipate by practicing a permanent group dynamics to innovate. The corporate culture will allow everyone at every level of responsibility of the company, to pay attention to the customer. This dynamics stimulates the creativity to make better in a different way: it is the challenge of the difference, the challenge of innovation.

The innovation has to be a continuous process, structured and organized at every level of a company: from the idea to the commercialization of products. The innovation is also the capacity