Product Innovation: Core to Continued Success

Abstract

Innovation is the development of new products, production processes, business practices or forms of organization. It is key to the creation of competitive advantages in organizations and increasingly at the center of long-term strategy. Innovations can be largely classified in three ways: product innovations, production process innovations and business model innovations. Among these, this volume focuses on product innovations and discusses the comprehensive picture of product innovations occurring in the global fashion industry on three levels—material, style and product development—with examples and references from global fashion brands. Innovations in materials driven largely by technology may not tell the complete story of the industry. The authors alert readers to pay attention to innovations in style, which may provide core competitive advantages for fashion brands and other mature industries where functionality or technology are less critical. This chapter concludes that the global fashion industry is truly the sector where diverse technologies found in many different sectors are merged, synthesized and utilized to address needs and concerns of end-users.