Innovation Management is not just Product Definition

Managing the implementation of Innovation in the Cloud

The purpose of this article is to expand the use of “Innovation Management” from the perspective of an organization looking at Oracle Cloud Innovation Management (IM). For the purpose of this paper Innovation will be broken down to three areas:

  • Market Offerings – Taking current market offerings to the next level
  • Process Improvement – Improve processes around the organization
  • New Initiatives – Radical departures from the norm

Market Offerings
This area represents the most common example of innovation, which is taking a current offering and moving it to the next level. Examples would include:

By leveraging the integration capabilities of Oracle Cloud IM an organization can easily capture and manage the change requests.
By leveraging the integration capabilities of Oracle Cloud IM an organization can easily capture and manage change requests.
  • Upgrading the processor in a PC
  • Providing additional hard drive options in PC
  • Adding data quality capabilities to a data migration service
  • Changing the pedals on a bike to non-slip
  • Add fields to Chart of Accounts for new GAP rules.

Oracle Cloud IM can be used to manage the requirements gathered across the customer’s innovation process. Today that process needs to capture information from various sources such as CRM, Employees, Social Media, Marketing, Sales, etc. By leveraging the integration capabilities provided by Oracle Cloud IM an organization can easily capture and manage these change requests.

Process Improvement
TQM, SCM, Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, PLM were all new innovate processes and techniques at one point and all of them have some type of continuous feedback loop. Even with these in place there is still a place for process improvement innovation within a customer’s organization. Depending on the industry there are different business models that are used to define the process and the information that needs to be captured. These models are customized to the terminology of the area of business where the proposed changes are being captured. Oracle Cloud IM provides the ability to capture these new process concepts and requirements that are being generated within an organization.

New Initiatives
This is the radical culture and process change within an organization and changes the “norm” from one way of doing business to another. So there is probably a combination of one or more of the following:

  • A new value chain is created based on the new business models being implemented
  • The new product or service will cause the creation of new markets or radically reshape current markets
  • Both the organization and the organization’s customers perceive an increase in the value as a result of the change

“Cloud IM is the enabler for the Innovation Management process; it is not the Innovation Management process. “

Again, depending on the industry there are different business models that are used to capture this type of information. These models are customized to the terminology of the area of business where information is being captured.

Oracle Cloud IM should be the product of choice to capture the new concepts and ideas that are flowing into an organization. As the concepts and ideas are analyzed, defined and ranked new requirements are generated which drive the new product/process definition. Here the power of capturing concepts and ideas and massaging via the features of Oracle Cloud IM reduces the time to market.

Conclusion

For Market Offerings the management of Innovation revolves around an already available product. For example if a new seat option is being added to a current bicycle offering the data around the product is available. While these changes to current market offerings can be disruptive and culture changing to the organization it is not really taking the value proposition to a new level.

In Process Improvement the value is derived from the process execution. So improving the process inherently increases its value.

IMNew initiatives come from concepts like “be the first to embed a performance measurement system within a nanotube bicycle frame.” These initiatives drives a meta-data capture that is much more extensive. Being first means no “product” to start from. There is capturing market requirements, cost models, prototypes, packaging, support, etc. that will need to be defined before released to detailed product design.

The objective in Innovation Management is to capture the meta-data around the idea or concept. As clusters of concepts and ideas come together the Product definition starts to form. At this point additional Oracle Cloud PLM products (Product Development, Product Portfolio Management, etc.) come into play.

Refer to the diagram “PLM Cloud Business Functions.” This is an innovations process that captures core product definition BEFORE going to product development. Oracle Innovation Management configuration is performed to match the process or processes used within the organization.

PLM Cloud Business Functions
PLMCloudBusinessFunctions
Cloud IM is the enabler for the Innovation Management process; it is not the Innovation Management process. Inspirage works with organizations such that the objectives of the innovation process are clearly understood and objectives achieved through implement Cloud Innovation Management.

Kevin Stemple | Key Contributor

Kevin is a member of the Innovation Management & PLM practice at Inspirage. He has 30+ years of new product development, new production introduction solutions and managing business transformations across the global enterprise using PLM and IM solutions. Industry experience covers a number of areas including High Tech, Medical Device, Pharma, Consumer Products and Marketing.