5.4: Stakeholders in Invention and Innovation

5.4
Stakeholders in Invention and Innovation
Essential idea: There are three key roles in invention and innovation, which can be shared by or more people.


The Inventor, the Product Champion, the Entrepreneur

Inventor

The lone inventor is an individual working outside or inside an organization who is committed to the invention of a novel product and often becomes isolated because he or she is engrossed with ideas that imply change and are resisted by others.

They are:

• Individuals with a goal of the complete invention of a new and somewhat revolutionary product
• Have ideas that are completely new and different
• May not comprehend or give sufficient care to the marketing and sales of there product.

• Are usually isolated, and have no backing towards their design.
• Are having a harder time to push forward their designs, especially in a market where large investments are required for success.
• Are often resisted by other employees and workers

Product Champion

The product champion is an influential individual, usually working within an organization, who develops enthusiasm for a particular idea or invention and 'champions' it within the organization.

Entrepreneur 

The entrepreneur is an influential individual who can take an invention to market, often by financing the development, production, and diffusion of a product into the marketplace.

The Inventor as a Product Champion and/or Entrepreneur
On occasion, the inventor is also the product champion and / or the entrepreneur. 

Effective design draws from multiple areas of expertise, and this can be utilized at different stages of product development. Most products are now extremely complex and rely on expertise from various disciplines. Most designs are developed by multidisciplinary team , such as modern products like smart-phones and printers.

It would be unlikely that a lone inventor would have the expertise in all the disciplines. 

A Multidisciplinary Approach to Innovation
Nowadays, most modern day designs are developed in multidisciplinary teams because of the varying types of skillsets required to design a product. Most products are now extremely complex and rely on expertise from various disciplines. 

Advantages

1. Wide range of knowledge that others may not have considered
2. Wide range of expertise and/or backgrounds that foster cross-fertilization of ideas
3. Wide range of expertise means that products are designed from different perspectives.

Disadvantages

1. May not want to share ideas for fear of losing ownership
2. Individual may not be used to working in teams
3. Different working styles and speed 
4. Chance of miscommunication

5.3: Strategies for Innovation

5.3
Strategies for Innovation
Essential Idea: Innovation should always occur in context and a deep understanding of the culture as well as the behaviors, needs, and wants of the customers.

Act of Insight
An act of insight refers to a sudden insight or revelation, which suggests a solution, or the means of achieving a solution.

• Often referred to as the “eureka moment”, a sudden image of a potential solution is formed in the mind, usually after a period of thinking about a problem
• Examples include: Newton watching an apple fall and gaining insight in gravitation forces or DaVinci inventing a crane after watching workers trying to lift heavy stone from a boat.

Adaptation
Taking a technology, concept or system from one application and then applying to a new product is described as adaptation. Adapting or changing the application is common in design and is found in a number of high profile examples.

An existing technology or solution to a problem in one field is used to provide for a new idea for a solution in the other. 

Analogy
Taking the idea from one context to another, and applying its characteristics into product design. [an idea from one context is used to stimulate ideas for solving a problem in another context].

Sonars were modelled on how bats navigate.

Chance
Chance is defined to be an unexpected discovery that leads to a new idea. For example, Velcro was developed when a chap walking with his dog found lots os seed pods stuck to his socks and dog. He looked under the microscope and made his discovery of the pods having many little hooks.

Velcro Close Up

Technology Transfer
Transfer is where a technology, manufacturing process, or material is transferred to another field to provide the basis for an invention. Earlier we saw how laser technology, originally thought to have few practical uses, was transferred to a variety of different applications including surgery, welding and cutting metal, bar-code readers, and audio CDs.

Transfer is where a technology, manufacturing process or material is transferred to another field to provide the basis for an invention.

Market Pull
When the market influences product design - designers often produce ideas for products in response to market forces. This is also called consumer pull. Market influences include a demand from consumers for a new product, or a competitor releasing a new product that impacts an organization's market share, thus the need for a response. 

Technology Push
Scientific research leads to advances in technology that underpin new ideas

Products may be re-designed because of the changes in materials, technology, or manufacturing methods. This is called technology push. Manufacturers will push their new product to market hoping that consumers will want to adapt the new technology.

5.2: Innovation

5.2
Innovation
Essential Idea: There are many different types of innovation, which is not to be confused with inventions - innovation is a product that is effectively communicated and introduced to the market. Innovation can be described as the creation of new devices, objects, ideas, or procedures useful in completing human objectives. The process of invention is invariably preceded by one or more discoveries that help the inventor solve the problem at hand.

Invention and Innovation
The act or the business of putting an invention in the marketplace and making it a success. The products that we consider as innovative should make a real difference.

Innovation is the process of discovering a principle; a technical advance in a particular field often resulting in a novel product. For example, credit for invention has frequently been claimed for someone who conceived an idea, but the inventor is the person who not only had the idea but also worked out the method of putting it into practice. The innovator is the one that revolutionizes the market by introducing something new.

Categories of Innovation
Reasons why few inventions become innovations
For an innovation to occur, something more than the generation of a creative idea is required. The idea must be put into action to a genuine difference to the human condition, resulting in the improvement of a product, a system, or environmental change. an innovation is a useful application of invention or discovery.

The idea must be put into action and be diffused into the market place.

Diffusion: The market diffusion process describes how an innovation spreads through a market. It is the process by which a new idea or new product is accepted by the market. 


Marketability
Low product demand or not readily saleable

Financial support
There is little financial backing from the organization or from outside sources

Marketing 
Advertising, shipping, storing and selling

Need 
Whether there is good reason or demand for the product eg. energy devices

Price
Value for money, cost compared to its usefulness

Resistance to change
Does the product challenge routine or feeling of comfort

Risk 
Is there a level of uncertainty about the financial/time investment in relation to the function and performance of the innovation?

Sustaining Innovation
Sustaining ideas have to do with improving the current product by developing generations 2,3,4,5, and so on until the product reaches the end of its life cycle. Normally large companies are very good at creating sustaining innovations because their resources, business processes, and cultures are setup in a way to enable sustaining efforts.

1. Feature fixes/Additions
Most next generation products will come with a handful of fixes and/or new features that address previous gripes with the first generation products.

2. Cost Reductions
As sales volumes grow for a product, the cost of purchasing raw materials for that product decline in addition to design enhancement that simplify the product or enable it to use less expensive materials.

2. Product Line Expansions 
At launch, most new products don't have a full suite of products to meet each end-user segment's needs and as a fix for that companies will fill out their product line by offering additional sizes, colors, etc.

Quality of the product will increase 

Sustaining: Incremental value gain over existing solutions available to users.

Disruptive Innovation
Disruptive innovations are the sort of big ideas that many of us have in mind when we think about an innovation. They are called disruptive because they disrupt the current market behavior, rendering existing solutions obsolete, transforming value propositions, and bringing previously marginal customers and companies into the center of attention. 

The iPod, which radically changed the way we listen to music, is one success of disruptive innovation and isn't about winning a technology race, but about delivering innovations aimed at a set of customers whose needs are being ignored by industry leaders. A disruptive innovation trades off performance along one dimension for performance along another, such as simplicity, convenience, ability to customize, or price.

Disruptive innovation attempts to consist of off-the-shelf components put together in a product architecture that was often simpler than prior approaches.

Process Innovation
A process innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved production or delivery method. This includes significant changes in techniques, equipment, and/or software.

Process innovations change the way that products are built, and can also focus on the processes through which products are created or delivered (for example, for a relief setting). It is about making the process efficient and convenient, helping businesses arrive at the best ideas for commercialization.

Architectural Innovation
Architectural innovation is the distinction between the product as a whole, the products in its parts, and its components. Architectural innovation changes the outside of the product/the house of the product whilst keeping the inside the same. It reconfigures the linkages between the components of established products in new ways while leaving the core design elements untouched.

Innovations that change the architecture a product without changing its components.

Architectural innovation destroys the usefulness of a firm's architectural knowledge but preserves the usefulness of its knowledge about the product's components. A component is defined as a physically distinct portion of the product that embodies a core design concept and performs a well-defined function.

Modular Innovation
Modular innovation is where you maintain the architecture of a product and modify the modules within the product. For instance, adding more interfaces to enhance the functionality/features to a smart phone so that each product is customized for its individual users. 

Configurational Innovation
Configuration design is a kind of innovation where a fixed set of predefined components that can be connected in predefined ways is given, and an assembly of components selected from this fixed set is sought that satisfies a set of requirements and obeys a set of constraints.

The associated design configuration problem consists of the following three constituent tasks:
1. Selection of components,
2. Allocation of components,
3. Interfacing of components (design of the ways the components interface/connect with each other)

Innovation Strategies for Markets: Diffusion and Suppression
Diffusion of innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures. Diffusion takes place once the product, system, or service is adopted. Adoption of an innovation runs through a hierarchy of groups of potential users.

Diffusion occurs through a five-step decision making process. It occurs through a series of communication channels over a period of time among the members of a similar social system. Rogers five stages of diffusion are:

• knowledge 
• persuasion
• decision
• implementation
• confirmation

The stages by which a person adopts an innovation, and whereby diffusion is accomplished, include awareness of the need for an innovation, decision to adopt (or reject) the innovation, initial use of the innovation to test it, and continued use of the innovation. 

Suppression or delayed adoption of an innovation in the early years of its availability when it may compete with a dominant design. There are factors that can delay widespread sales , including the companies that are currently providing technology and products that might be threatened by a newcomer, like telegraph companies faced with the telephone.