Often the capability of innovation from directly inside an
organization is very different from the acceptable or purchase of
radical technological change. In some instances there is also the chance
for powerful services changes due to environmental disruptions such as
in the case of AirBnB which in many cases no one even saw coming. But is
there a way to be able to also cultivate the capability to develop and
specifically nurture unknown and left field innovation occurrences that
can directly effect and drive an organizations unexpected growth.
In ” Critical Success Factors for Radical Technology Innovation
” we see the capability to address “planned radical innovation ” should
first be analyzed from the perspective of an R&D project and its
transferability to operations, and where we see the 1st breakdown of the
” innovation ” method itself, here, actualized as new product
development. think Makerbot being acquired by Stratasys
whose patents had ultimately expired thus allowing the doors to be
opened for further development of a market almost completely ignored by
Makerbot at the time. Radical innovation is not normally anywhere close
to typical transferr to operations modes. Radical Innovation is itself,
not likely to be accepted by the parent organization. With the reality
check of technological innovation and its acceptance in the marketplace,
this is again more connected to new product development rather than
innovation formally. but when looked at as an internal venture, separate
from ongoing business which is valid and important but again more
easily accepted when the ” innovation ” itself has the capability to be
easily accepted and which can sometimes co-exist inside organizations
already delivering substantial revenue.
When looked at withing the context of a change in corporate strategy
in terms of diversification and strategic focus, this is where there is
the closest analog to shifting capabilities of a firm and as an example
what happened with Apple and the purchase of NeXT which allowed the Mac
product line to take a radical jump in it’s ability to push out rival
firms in the education space – a place where large industry players had a
very strong hold at the university level but where Apple had almost
taken over at the lower educational levels with it’s Apple II line many
years before
Where the idea of internal innovation is a possibility in firms who
are highly R&D focused, incremental innovation ( more closely
identified as new product development efforts ) have a substantial
advantage over radical innovation efforts that have a completely
different mechanism for success to be assured. In that way, the
capability to alter and directly effect the outcome and radical
innovation efforts substantial care must be made to the integration
process over all other factors so that organizations/organisms easily
accept the changes that are taking place.
