Management Innovation and new technology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Management Innovation and new technology - Essay Example The concept of innovation is as old as the history of earth as men have always tried to improve things in their surroundings for the comfort and ease. However, from the history of world businesses, we can see that in the run towards an â€Å"innovated product† companies often lead towards customer frustration and dissatisfaction resulting in lower sales and loss of customer trust. There are various examples in the past where companies define the ultimate objective to launch an innovative product and did not give much thought to the process and need of it. This lack of understanding of product innovation becomes one of the major reasons of product sales downfall (Light Minds Ltd, 2005). Many economists believe that with the increasing business competition, managers and executives often overestimate the need of their consumers. A new and innovative product is often more complex to use and more expensive (Gottfredson & Aspinall, 2005). Advancement in a product line needs better m achineries and plentiful of company’s resources which eventually the consumer has to bear. Often the advancement made by companies is just to give the feeling of ‘new’ and is not as per the need of the customer (Rosenthal, 2099). The recent example of Facebook Timeline is relevant to highlight in this regard. It was introduced to give a new and fresh look to the users so to increase the time they spend on Facebook. Result shows that the objective was merely achieved as it increases the complexity of the product (Choney, 2011). Therefore, keeping the perspective of consumers is a key element in the success of product innovation process (Light Minds Ltd, 2005). Case Study of 3M The case of 3M’s Post-it Notes can be analyzed to justify that product innovation is not just a one-off event, but a complex organization process. The idea of adhesive notepad seemed great initially, but it turned out to be a below average invention, which the consumer kept daunting f or years. The notepad went through several stages of innovation; each time the company offering something new in the product but failing to generate a massive sale every time (Nayak & Ketteringha, 1994). The issue was not meeting with the customer’s need and innovating, what might be better but not the requirement. This explains the core concept behind product innovation. Another lacking in the product was in its limited usage. People did not feel the need of having an adhesive bulletin board rather than a simple board. This brought the executives of 3M to the conclusion that this product has no future in the market (Nayak & Ketteringha, 1994). It was at this crucial time that one of the executives of the company, Spencer Silver, thought that the sticky pad can be given another try to make it more viable for people’s use. As product innovation is a summed product of the facts of previous sales and consumers’ demand, he carried a decent research to find the ways to optimize the use of the adhesive notepad. He explored the marvelous concept that an innovation does not always need to be complicated; it can come through simple means too. He used the same ingredients that were used in the notepads, but with different proportions and combinations, out of which one gave a new result. The learned people around and scientists were all conservative with their approach. Their thinking phenomenon was restricted by their knowledge of chemical properties and reactions of ingredients. However,