Innovative Process Innovation in Business

Innovative Process

Innovation in Business

The Four Basic Phases of the Innovative Process

The innovative process can be described as the evolution of four phases, idea generation, screening, feasibility, and implementation. Each phase requires a go/no go decision by management before moving on to the next phase. Because of this items that go through each development phase only to be rejected at one of the final phases involve significant investments in time and money. Consequently the sooner decision makers can identify a marginal project and drop it from further consideration the less time and money wasted.

Idea Generation

Ideas come from many sources including customer suggestions, suppliers, employees, research scientists, marketing research, inventors outside the organization, competitive products. Stephen Pick (2009) notes there is an array of speculation on what makes people and organizations innovative leaders in their fields, however one concept nearly every researcher and practitioner studying innovation agrees on is the need for lots of ideas; the more ideas, the greater the chances for innovation. The most successful ideas are directly related to satisfying customer needs.

Screening

In this phase with ideas are eliminated that do not mesh with overall organizational objectives or cannot be developed given the organizations recourses. Some organizations hold open discussion of new ideas with specialists who work in different functional areas in the organization.

Feasibility

During the feasibility phase new products and ideas are assessed to determine such things as potential sales, profits, growth rate, and competitive strengths and determining whether it fits with the company's product distribution and promotional recourses. This phase also may involve concept testing. This is marketing research designed to solicit initial customer reaction to new product ideas.

An actual product may be developed, subjected to a series of tests and revised. Functioning prototypes or detailed descriptions of the product may be created. These designs are normally a joint responsibility of the organization's development staff and it marketers, who provide feedback on customer reactions to the proposed product design, color and other physical features.