Managing Process Innovation Through Exploitation And Exploration

In order to stay efficient, companies need to improve their existing business processes on a continuous basis. To ensure competitive edge, it is essential for companies to adapt radically to new business opportunities and when external demands change. However, experience and research show that companies have difficulties managing both the continuous improvement of the existing system and radical change at the same time. By using TQM and BPR to represent the two approaches to change Tor Tønnessen contributes to the understanding of the challenges of this integration and shows ways to accomplish a successful synergistic combining of the two approaches.

Patrick Schulze investigates the performance effects and organizational antecedents of innovation strategies and, in particular, ambidexterity.

This book is the first to present a rich selection of over 30 real-world cases of how leading organizations conduct Business Process Management (BPM). The cases stem from a diverse set of industry sectors and countries on different continents, reporting on best practices and lessons learned. The book showcases how BPM can contribute to both exploitation and exploration in a digital world. All cases are presented using a uniform structure in order to provide valuable insights and essential guidance for students and practitioners.

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 2,3, Free University of Berlin (Fachbereich Wirtschaftswissenschaften ), course: Seminar Innovative Organization, language: English, abstract: Internationalization, shorter product life cycles and increasing complexity have lead to a situation in today’s world where organizations around the globe, on every level of the innovation process and in every industry, face increasing competition. Especially affected by these characteristics are high-tech industries, which are often characterized through a high rate of product novelties, cutting edge technology and rapidly changing industry standards. Examples for hightechnology industries that have been used in academic journal articles and that have been subject to empirical research are the robotic industry, the semiconductor industry and the optical disc industry. Especially in those industries organizations rely on constant and ongoing innovation to create and sustain competitive advantages and, therefore, to stay in business. Those innovative companies that constantly innovate and that are characterized through a high level of entrepreneurship can also be illustrated as “knowledge-creating companies” or “learning organization”. But what makes them so innovative? How do they choose an innovation style? How is innovation managed? My point in this paper will be that innovation management should be able to answerer the following three questions: “How?” Which innovation style is used “When?” On which level of the innovation process is a style used “Why?” Reason for the innovation style used on that level These questions seem to be most important since Fagerberg states in the introduction of the Oxford Handbook of Innovation: “In spite of the large amount of research in this area during the past fifty years, we know much less about why and how innovation occurs than what it leads to.” Additionally, the question of “when?” is added to conceptualize the innovation process into dependent innovation process levels that follow each other in a distinct order. To answerer these questions I will start with a general description of what innovation is, what exploration and exploitation are, I will describe the general setting in which organizations have to operate and what defines an innovative organization.

This book will take the reader through a systematic examination of the factors involved in process innovation. It starts with the considerations to be initiated in the boardroom and at group management level and develops into a hands-on guide for middle management and professional engineers directly involved in the innovation of process technology. The book initially puts process innovation in a corporate perspective, providing a framework for the development of a corporate process innovation strategy. Some new methodological tools are also introduced which support the targeting and proper roadmapping of improved process capabilities, and the progression of customer and end-user product demands, into raw-material specifications in a well-managed supply and demand chain.Various aspects of the design of a process innovation organisation are reviewed in a later section. In the context of the development of process technology, this book advocates the importance of delineating and clarifying corporate work processes. Various environments for development work are discussed, from initial test work to pilot-plant testing and the use of demonstration facilities to achieve lean process innovation. The importance of an open collaborative approach is stressed. This includes involving external equipment manufacturers at an early stage as well as collaborative development of customers' use of the products in their production processes, with a view to excellence in future application development.Process innovation will not, however, generate profit or reduce operating costs until the new or improved process technology is operating well in the plant. Best practice for start-up of new process technology and process plants is examined, starting with a fresh outlook on technology transfer in general. This often-neglected area of management of process innovation is, in fact, of an importance equivalent to that of a product launch in the development of new products. The final part of the book closes the circle, discussing how to implement and measure the strategic intent of process innovation. Improving the general performance of corporate process innovation is then covered by going through success factors and key performance indicators, and their aggregation on a corporate level.

This management manual and textbook introduces the theoretical basics of process management and provides a procedural model for process innovation. The procedural model makes it possible to develop customer-oriented processes in a structured manner and to design them in order to meet changing requirements. This textbook has been recommended and developed for university courses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This book enables readers to understand and apply the seven phase procedural model for process innovation in order to design and implement innovative processes. Exercises and review questions test understanding of the theoretically acquired knowledge.

Featuring contributions from prominent thinkers and researchers, this volume in the "Advances in Management Information Systems" series provides a rich set of conceptual, empirical, and introspective studies that epitomize fundamental knowledge in the area of Business Process Transformation. Processes are interpreted broadly to include operational and managerial processes within and between organizations, as well as those involved in knowledge generation. Transformation includes radical and incremental change, its conduct, management, and outcome. The editors and contributing authors pay close attention to the role of IS organizations and information technologies in facilitating business process transformation. Each chapter places major emphasis on clearly articulating the "knowledge" generated, both theoretical and applied. The book incorporates case studies and tables throughout, and provides fundamental grounding for any stakeholder of business process transformation.

Monograph on the fundamental dilemma between productivity and Innovation in the motor vehicle industry in the USA - following a historical account of the evolution of automobile design, shows how obstacles set by competitiveness, automation, etc. Shaped the course of technological change, and includes case studies with their respective chronology of events. Bibliography pp. 251 to 258, diagrams, graphs, photographs, references and statistical tables.