Process Innovation Enabling Change By Technology

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.

Technological Innovation: Strategy and Management offers a comprehensive analysis of technological innovation management from a strategic and integrated approach. The book covers the most relevant topics on the discipline of Innovation Management, such as the conceptual framework for innovation and technology, the study of innovation sources, the strategic management of innovation and technology, innovation enablers (organization, leadership, culture, human capital, creativity and learning), innovation outcomes (product and process innovation), and the evaluation and control of the innovation process. It particularly highlights the role of innovation and technology to build sustainable competitive advantages. The book references the most relevant and updated research work in this realm. This can be helpful for researchers, scholars and practitioners who want to have an updated guide on the state-of-the-art technological innovation management.

The chapters in the book focus on recent developments in the field of technological innovation and entrepreneurship. It is structured in three parts. The focus is on innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems, digital technologies and innovation, as well as responses to pandemics resulting from external shocks.Carefully selected on the basis of relevance and rigor, the chapters in the book take the readers through various trending research topics.

The business environment of the 1990s demands significant changes in the way we do business. Simply formulating strategy is no longer sufficient; we must also design the processes to implement it effectively. The key to change is process innovation, a revolutionary new approach that fuses information technology & human resource management to improve business performance. Process innovation is built around new technologies & motivated workers. It begins with commitment to a strategic vision from senior management; its scope is vast & crosses business functions; & its goals are ambitious-companies often seek tenfold improvements in cost, time, or quality. For example, IBM reduced the preparation time for quotes on buying or leasing a computer from seven days to one day, while preparing ten times as many quotes. The Internal Revenue Service collected 33% more from delinquent taxpayers, with only half the staff & one-third of the branch offices. One analysis of the New York Stock Exchange suggests that electronic trading could save buyers & sellers hundreds of millions of dollars each year. The cornerstone to process innovation's dramatic results is information technology-a largely untapped resource, but a crucial "enabler" of process innovation. In turn, only a challenge like process innovation affords maximum use of information technology's potential. Davenport provides numerous examples of firms that have succeeded or failed in combining business change & technology initiatives. He also highlights the roles of new organizational structures & human resource programs in developing process innovation.

The business environment of the 1990s demands significant changes in the way we do business. Simply formulating strategy is no longer sufficient; we must also design the processes to implement it effectively. The key to change is process innovation, a revolutionary new approach that fuses information technology and human resource management to improve business performance. The cornerstone to process innovation's dramatic results is information technology--a largely untapped resource, but a crucial "enabler" of process innovation. In turn, only a challenge like process innovation affords maximum use of information technology's potential. Davenport provides numerous examples of firms that have succeeded or failed in combining business change and technology initiatives. He also highlights the roles of new organizational structures and human resource programs in developing process innovation. Process innovation is quickly becoming the byword for industries ready to pull their companies out of modest growth patterns and compete effectively in the world marketplace.

The innovation process is the most important of all business processes. Innovation is the means by which value is constructed and efficiencies are created. It is the source of sustainable competitive advantage. This book shows how the innovation process is changing profoundly. Part of the change results from the application of new technologies to the innovation process itself. A new category of technology has emerged which we call 'innovation technology'. This includes simulation and modelling, visualization, and rapid prototyping technologies. When used effectively, innovation technology makes the innovation process more economical and ameliorates some of its uncertainties. These technological changes are accompanied by changing organization structures and skills requirements. The technologies are used in fast moving, creative environments and are suited to project-based organization. They also require the development of new 'craft' skills to realize the possibilities created by the new 'code'. The book outlines a new way of thinking about innovation. Traditional definitions of 'research', 'development' and 'engineering', imply a progressive linearity which doesn't exist in reality. They are also associated with organizational departments, which are breaking down where once they existed, and are in any case non-existent in the vast majority of firms. They also fail to capture the central importance of design in innovation. We propose a new schema for the innovation process: Think, Play, Do. Innovation requires creating new ideas and thinking about new options, playing with them to see if they are practical, economical and marketable, and then doing: making the innovation real. This new schema captures the emerging innovation process using a more contemporary idiom. The book reports in-depth studies from a number of companies and sectors. Major case studies of Procter and Gamble and Arup Partners are presented. It reports on the use of innovation technology in a range of other companies and organizations, from pharmaceuticals in GSK, to engineering design in Ricardo engineering , and welding in TWI. We describe how innovation technology is used in traditional industries, such as in mining, and in public projects, such as the development of London's traffic congestion charge and the stabilization of the leaning tower of Pisa.

This book will take the reader through a systematic examination of the factors involved in process innovation, starting with considerations to be initiated in the boardroom and at group management level and developing 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 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 development of process technology, this book advocates the importance of delineating and clarifying corporate work processes for process innovation. 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 then 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.

Why do some technologies spread while others do not? What are the consequences of top-down diffusion strategies? What are the disadvantages of instant patents? In answering these questions, this book forms a 'how to do it' guide to innovation management.