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December 1, 2008
Formal and Sustained Management of IncrementalTechnology Innovation:An Improvement toCorporate Technology Infrastructure
By 
 Saahil Goel 
 , Student, Katz Graduate School of Business
Brian Butler 
 , Head – MIS Department, Katz Graduate School of Business
 
 
December 1, 2008
Contents
Executive Summary 2
 
The Issue, context andmotivation 3
 
The Position and Perspective 7
 
Recommendations 12
 
References 15
 
Executive Summary
 
ith the changing economiclandscape, both large and smallcorporations are relying oninnovation – in business processes and intechnology to enable cost savings fromprocess improvement 
i
.Innovation is defined as “The managedeffort of an organization to develop newproducts or services or new uses forexisting products or services”.Technology innovation is defined as “Achange in appearance or performance of products or services or the physicalprocesses through which a product orservice passes”. Finally, incrementalinnovation is defined as “A new product,service, or technology that modifies anexisting one”
ii
. From these definitions andbasic derivation, “incremental technologyinnovation” can be defined as
a managed change in the process technology that anorganization uses to deliver its products or services that modifies or builds upon theexistent process or technology 
.
Incremental innovation
is relativelyshort-term in terms of benefit generationand is applied in smaller and measurablechunks. This considerably lowers thelevel of risk that a firm faces byindulgence in the process of suchinnovation. Incremental innovationattempts to improve an existing product or service by innovating
around 
what’savailable
iii
. Further, when incrementaltechnology innovation is applied acrossan enterprise, it can bring about significant improvements in a company’sinternal processes and businesstechnology infrastructure.
W
 
 
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 The fundamental issue withincremental innovation ismismanagement of suchinnovative practices. Factors suchas timing, resource allocation, ideageneration, selection andprioritization, competitivelandscape and measurement criteria make incrementalinnovation extremely difficult tomanage using any pre-determinedformal process. Incrementalinnovation also has to deal withfostering a culture of innovationamongst the company employees –to encourage managers anddecision-makers to implement innovative and lateral thinking inall their problem-solving attempts.Further, innovative ideamanagement should occur at acompany-wide level whichrequires careful reception,prioritization and implementationof innovative ideas from grass-roots levels all the way to the topmanagement.
The Issue, context andmotivation
ue to the ever evolving technologylandscape, it is difficult to makeinnovative technology decisionsthat would best solve business problems.Today, several technologies are availablefor each and every leg and each and everyfingernail of those legs of any businesscorporation. To be able to identify thebest portfolio of technology innovation touse for each business problem presents aunique and mammoth challenge fororganizations. Further, since knowledgeis diffused amongst variousimplementation-level employees, it is alsodifficult to manage innovative technologyideas that are generated at the grass-root level. Ideas may come from all levels of forward-thinking technologyimplementers. The real challenge is inidentifying the ideas which wouldgenerate most value for decision-making,prioritizing them, experimenting withthem and then actually implementingthem in a corporate setting.The issue of management of incrementaltechnology innovation is
fundamentallydifficult 
due to several reasons.First, there is a
cultural aspect 
involvedwith ingraining innovation into themindset of a company’s employees. Forincremental innovation to be successful,the company’s top management shouldfoster a corporate culture of innovationand ensure that the message reachesevery level of an organization. However,in most companies top management isused to running existing business and isnot very focused on building
 future
 
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