Incremental Innovation versus Discontinuous Innovation: An Analysis of the Fuzzy Front End

Abstract

Companies innovate to increase revenues or reduce costs. The literature identifies two types of innovation approaches: incremental innovation, when an enterprise uses and “exploits” its current competencies, and radical innovation, which points out a company’s need to develop and “explore” new competencies. In product design and development through discontinuous innovation, fuzzy front end (ffe)— the most critical stage due to the difficulty of understanding and articulating the opportunities detected—has a decisive impact. Thus, through literature analysis, this reflective article allows a deeper understanding of ffe from two dimensions: i) Degree of innovation—incremental innovation vs. discontinuous innovation— and ii) Time—a project stage. To that end, we propose a framework of reference for ffe construct. The results enable academia to reduce the gap around the ffe construct and companies involved in innovation projects to better understand the nature of a project according to the degree of innovation of a new product, as well as how to proceed in order to reduce uncertainties; insights that could ultimately increase the chances of a new product becoming successful.