The process of turning an idea into a saleable product or service is known as innovation. Innovation is defined as 'the successful exploitation of new ideas'.
Innovation allows businesses to develop new products and new processes. Innovation can help you create new markets such as Nintendo shaping the family gaming market with its Wii games. It can help to create new ways of doing business.
However, innovation can bring new competitors into your market. For example.Wrigley was threatened by Trident's entry into the chewing gum market, Kodak was attacked by Sony's entrance into the camera market, Gillette was challenged by King of Shaves' move into the razor market. Innovation can also make markets obsolete, such as VHS and typewriters if they don't keep up.
Given that customers are likely to be demanding more each year, innovation can be essential to help a business remain competitive by increasing the benefits it provides and/or reducing the costs of providing the product. Innovation may be essential just to keep pace with what competitors are doing.
The extent to which innovation occurs in some markets is clear. Just look at the razor market and you can see enormous innovations on a regular basis : more razor blades, better razor blades, faster, smaller electric shavers and shavers for women. The same is true in the toothbrush market. (Surridge&Gillespe, 2009:143)
No comments:
Post a Comment