Skip to main content

Probing the Innovation Challenge



• What is the real challenge in innovation ?

The poor conversion of good ideas into truly valuable innovation. The fundamental issues behind this challenge are - How to create the vision for technology innovation? How to engage the experts and focus their efforts? How to organize the resources? How to deliver the innovations in time?

• How is it a challenge?

When ideas don’t evolve into innovations, the inventors get discouraged, technology managers are frustrated, stakeholders are disappointed, technology development stagnates, the business loses confidence in R&D, new product development falls into a coma and ultimately the market suffers.

• Who faces the challenge?

Technologists and scientists everywhere face this challenge whether they are in university research groups, government laboratories, industrial R&D teams in large companies, small technology start-ups etc. Though the innovation environment is significantly different across these organizations, the challenge remains the same.

• When and where is it a challenge?

The challenge arises typically when the market need is ahead of the technology or when the technology is ahead of the market. The challenge exists in most emerging / developing / fast-growing economies. The challenge is intense, for a late entrant, in technology domains where the IP space is crowded. The absence of government regulation or enforcement favoring the new technology could further make things difficult.

• Why is it a challenge?

o Management of IP – Inventors create valuable IP when they patent their ideas and inventions, but most of them don’t realize the importance of monetizing their IP. Even large technology-based businesses and R&D organizations do not effectively monetize their intellectual capital. Sustaining the innovation efforts becomes a challenge when the IP fails to generate value.

o New Product Development – Effective use of technology to differentiate the product in the market is the most reliable way to create a competitive advantage. The creation of a winning product needs a good knowledge of the unmet needs and a focused effort to meet those needs through technology innovations. Typical examples of a desired, but currently unmet, need in technology products could be lower cost, longer life, more user friendly, environment friendly etc. Sustaining the innovation efforts becomes a challenge when the revenue generated by new products is non-existent or delayed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Archimedes' Bathtub, Newton's Apple and Einstein's Chair

When do Great Ideas come ? .... after Incubation  Archimedes had his bath, Galileo had his leaning tower,  Newton had his apple, and Einstein had his chair. All these Inventors were (a) intensely focused on solving specific physics problems (b) they had each looked at a variety of promising ideas, but reached an impasse after some stage (c) they smartly decided to move away from the scene - took a break (d) after some time, a fresh idea popped into their Mind (e) they recognized the potential of the idea and held on to it (f) they diligently worked on it  and finally developed a real breakthrough concept. Many Inventors have shared the vale of incubating their idea and described specific instances where the incubation phase is followed by a sudden enlightenment. We have heard the stories of Archimedes, Galileo and Newton too often - so let us focus on Einstein's story. You might have heard of Einstein's Violin but not about his chair - the chair that gave...
4 comments
Read more

Why & How we should study AI & Machine Learning (6 Easy Steps)

AI & ML are fundamental new technologies that can create immense value to humankind. It is very important for us to learn AI & ML and apply this knowledge in our work.  If you are somebody like me without prior exposure to computers, you may wonder where to begin the journey – I did some homework and found an easy step-by-step using online resources . It takes only 6 easy steps to gain mastery in AI & ML. I will start with sharing with you the talk that Risto Siilasmaa (Chairman, Nokia) gave in Nov, 2017 – “Why you should study AI and Machine Learning and how I did it”. Step # 1 - Risto Siilasmaa started his journey into AI & ML by asking, “Where could I find good material explaining how machine learning works in terms that would speak to an engineer who loves to understand how things work?” Step # 2 - “ Why not study machine learning myself and then explain what I learned to others who are struggling with the same questions. Perhaps I could mo...
68 comments
Read more

Parallels between Panini and Altshuller

There are good parallels between how Panini simplified and made Sanskrit grammar accessible to all and how Altshuller simplified and made the collective wisdom of Inventive knowledge accessible to all. Panini and Altshuller were not contemporaries, they were separated by at least 25 centuries. But their zeal and perseverance to reduce complex stuff into a handful of powerful principles is very much comparable. Their himalayan effort connected the invisible dots and brought out patterns that were submerged in a vast amount of unstructured data.  Panini is a great sanskrit grammarian and logician (~ 4th century BC).  He was a pioneer in Linguistics and his works were path breaking in both descriptive and generative linguistics. He was a forerunner of modern formal language widely used in modern computer languages. Source -  http://ramm.hubpages.com/hub/PANINI-LOGICIAN-AND-SANSKRIT-GRAMMARIAN Genrich Altshuller, the originator of TRIZ, was working in the pat...
1 comment
Read more