1.

Looking at the texts that have been provided for this seminar as well as the
course book there seems to be a difference in how they define “innovation”. In a
similar manner the texts also seems to talk about different types of innovations:
radical, incremental, organisational, evolutionary, disruptive etc. Motivate, in
short, after reading the texts how you would define innovation and why your
definition is useful but also for whom it is useful.

Answer:
Innovation is making changes in products or services or the method of creating
and supplying them, with the aim of responding to new markets and the changing
needs of customers in such a way that customers are willing to pay the value of
the changes. Making these changes correctly and succeeding in them depends
on observing the links, discovering opportunities and using them properly. By this
definition, both customers and organizations can benefit from the
implementation. If the innovation provides added value for customers it would be
able to give them extra services or better performance to satisfy their needs and
consequently, if the customers were ready to pay, the outcome of the
organization would be increased and they would be able to support the ideas
about future innovation

2. It seems as very few inventions seem to become innovations (depending on how

you define them). Reflect, in short, on the reason for this.

Answer:
An invention might become an innovation if it would be deliverable to series of
customers who are ready to pay for it due to the extra value will bring to them
and indeed invention could be a part of the innovation process.
Innovation differs from an invention in that it creates economic value and is not
limited to inventors. A new invention only in a laboratory environment has no
direct economic contribution. Innovation means a discovery that moves from the
laboratory to production and adds economic value to the company or reduces its
costs. Innovation includes not only basic and applied research, but also product
development, production, marketing, distribution, service, and adaptation and
improvement of the next product. A company might fail several times during the
process to provide an innovation from an invention and definitely it will increase
its expenditure.

3. An important point, from a firm perspective, is to focus on the value of a particular

product or service might have. Given your definition of an innovation, think of an
innovative idea for a new product or service. List the ways in which it might
create ‘value’ for users – what aspects are likely to appeal and why might they
pay for this?
 Answer:
An innovation in digital cameras could be faster accessibility to photos taken at a
specific moment and the ability to share them. The digital camera always needs
a mediator like pc or laptop to be able to transfer your file from camera to any
other destination, for example, to editor partner. So if cameras could have an
operating system that was able to connect to a network and do the process to
send the image by some applications. Therefore, photographers do not have to
carry a lot of devices with them or they do not have to stay to reach the
computers. Due to this a significant amount of time would be saved to prepare a
photo to be used in an urgent situation for example in newspapers or breaking
news and gives the possibility to be shared in social media as an important
event. In addition, there will be a great opportunity for system designers to create
an operating system that is compatible with the camera’s system.

4. With your chosen definition supported with the course book and seminar texts
give an example of a company that you consider being “innovative” and/or
produces innovations. Motivate shortly your example.

Answer:
Due to the definition of incremental innovation, it might not be completely new or
exceptional and might have been previously known to the firm or industry, and
involve only a minor change from (or adjustment to) existing practices.
In 1948 Nikon Company started to create and manufacture the first models of
analog cameras and continued as a well-known company and brand in the
photography industry. Their first compact digital camera was released in 1997
and the first SLR camera was Nikon D1 a professional digital camera. Although
the price of digital cameras was much more than analog cameras, there were
several achievements in using digital cameras for users. The most important
specification of digital cameras was the quality of photos. The quality of the
photos taken by analog cameras had stayed at the same level of quality for
decades due to the photography types of equipment. All pictures could be saved
in a small memory and photographers had the chance to shoot significantly faster
than analog cameras, about four times faster. The growth of using software
attracted more photographers because they were able to edit their photos on
computers and the software providers made the way easier and faster to see
their results after taking pictures. They could store recorded documents in hard
storage and they could be recalled by a simple search in drives. The digital
camera could be known as an incremental innovation that works based on the
traditional rules of analog cameras with some differentiations in performance and
necessary equipment. Rothwell and Gardiner would label this incremental
innovation and Kleinschmidt and Cooper would label it a moderate innovation,
and to Abernathy and Clark the digital camera evolution is a revolutionary
innovation.
5. It is sometimes difficult to point to a clear point of origin for an innovation. Make a
list of possible sources for innovation (similar to the one below). Continue
working with the list until you have generated 5 more sources with examples (i.e.
don't count with the first two already given by me)

Source of innovation Examples

Personal need New products for example Post-in papers

New methods to keep food for longer periods

Supplier distance
for example the process of canning

New phones- for example, using super AMOLED

Network between firms
screens for iPhones produced by Samsung

Government-funded
New military facilities
research

New or Improved- for example, GPS microchip

Knowledge Brokers
locator which ranchers use for tracing their herd