1 - The Innovation Process

Abstract

Innovation is the business process for creating new and insightful ideas and bringing them successfully to market. The inspirational part of innovation is important, but the essence of effective innovation is managing the supply chain from idea to market efficiently. This chapter briefly discusses the innovation process. There are three fundamental business innovation processes: idea generation and crystallization, development and demonstration, and investing and preparing for launch. The process for innovation has changed throughout history as a result of changes in the business environment. The main factors for change have been the changing role of science and technology, the emergence of modern management and business techniques, the evolving sophistication of the markets, and the changes in the innovation supply chain within large companies. There are three main innovation process models developed over time in different historic eras: preindustrial era, industrial era, and postindustrial era. Innovation processes have their roots in the industrial revolution. Before the industrial era, innovation occurred mainly via trial and error and serendipity played a major role. The industrial revolution brought the systematic application of science and technology to the innovation process. This created the classic approach to technology enabled innovation based on scientific discoveries.