Vision For Innovation

We know that far too many companies, faced with unstable or declining markets, slash R&D, and then restore some of the cuts when business improves. This is, according to market experts, major error. The period of recovery following recessions is a time in which market leaders are most reshuffled. The winners in this situation are those with the courage and fortitude to remain innovative in hard times and those who do not, they slip to the bottom. Innovation Management is a unique book in the rapidly growing discipline of innovation management. It seeks to build on the experience from an earlier discipline—competitive strategy. It took more than two decades for practitioners to realise that successful strategy is driven by implementation, not by formulation. Similarly, successful innovation—the key to growth and profit—rests on disciplined management and implementation of the innovation process from start to finish. This book first answers the key questions: Why innovate? How to innovate? Who innovates? It then provides 10 essential and practical tools to help innovators guide their ideas to marketplace success.

The 523-page book is divided into 14 chapters. The first four chapters relate to the why, what, how and who of innovation. Chapter two includes a new chapter on vision, strategy and innovation. The next chapter provides new inspiring cases of innovators like Forrest Bird, driven to invent by the love of his spouse. These chapters provide a new model for innovation, combining wisdom, intelligence, creativity and synthesis. Chapters five to fourteen are each focussed on a key tool for innovation.

The book combines the extensive knowledge and international experience of authors Shlomo Maital and DVR Seshadri. The book aims to teach readers in a systematic way how to effectively build winning business strategies and help companies achieve sustained growth and profit through innovation. Innovation Management shows how companies and individuals can transform creative ideas into powerful, sustainable, change-the-world businesses and emphasises the crucial role of execution in implementing inspiring ideas.

Against the backdrop of meeting the increasing number of courses in innovation management, the book provides full coverage of vitally important area of business. Drawing from their extensive professional and academic experience, the writers show the relationship between innovation, a management function, and profitability, a financial function. They create a framework that encompasses the basic questions of the “who, what, when, and where” of innovation, combining the latest theoretical discussion with abundant examples. The book takes a unique multi-functional approach that integrates the important contributions of economics, organisational theory, marketing, and finance to innovation management. This approach provides students with a full presentation of appropriate management theory and detailed coverage of practical concerns such as the role of government regulation, choosing a profit site, and the transfer of innovation. In addition to a strong analytical and theoretical foundation, the book offers many pedagogical examples. Most chapters include mini case studies and lists of action learning, designed to supplement the numerous examples within each chapter. Innovation Management is an ideal book for business school programmes and also provides guidance for executives and managers seeking a better understanding of the value of innovation.

By Ashok Kumar