Strategy management questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Strategy management questions - Essay Example Innovations are largely due to hard work and systematic analysis of the opportunities available for creating something new. Innovation has strong marketing components. The best of ideas do not sell themselves. They need to get a buy in from the people involved. New networks have to be built. According to Sutton (2002) "Too many innovations succeed because they are sold better, not because they are objectively superior to those of competitors". Peter Drucker (1985, 1988) puts unexpected success and failures as managers' dilemma. When a product succeeds or fails unexpectedly, there is potential for innovation. The unexpected success is an affront to the management's judgment. Very few managers pay attention to the unexpected success. It should force managers to ask; what would it mean to us if we exploited it Where could it lead us What would we have to do to concert it into an opportunity How do we go about it What basic changes are now appropriate for the organization in the way it d efines its business, its technology and its market If these dilemmas are answered, then the unexpected success is likely to open up various innovation opportunities. Unexpected failures also create opportunities to innovate. But they are usually handled better. Any change likely to offer an opportunity for innovations. Managers often do not make adequate efforts to understand why there is a discrepancy between what is and what 'Ought' to be or between what is and what everyone assumes it to be. But they realize that these discrepancies present an opportunity to innovate. As Christensen and Raynor (2003) points out, companies who understand what job the customer is trying to get done and how the products or services fits in, will have an opportunity to innovate. In the era of global unification, the emergence of new knowledge and technology also increases the dilemma of managers knowledge based innovation is very risky because of the long lead times involved. Knowledge based innovati ons are usually not based on one factor but on the convergence of several kinds of knowledge. Knowledge based requires a careful analysis of all the relevant factors, social, economic and perceptual. To be successful, a knowledge based innovation has to be ripe. It must gain customer acceptance. The risks are not because highest in innovations based in new knowledge and technology not because of failure but perception of the public. But innovations are essential to any organization be its' product or services to meet its market its market needs. So companies must modify the traditional innovation process, companies need a flexible product development process. Top management must keep goals broad and tolerate ambiguity. It must encourage trial and error and at the same time generate creative tension by setting challenging goals. Knowing customers priority and needs is essential for successful innovation. According to Drucker (1985, 1988), nothing motivates a manager to be a better in novator than the realization that the present product or services will be abandoned within the foreseeable future. There is only one way to make an innovation attractive to managers: a systematic policy of abandoning whatever is outwork, obsolete and no longer productive. Innovation performance must be regularly assessed. Management must judge the company's total innovative performance against its innovation objectives. 2. Business strategies are the courses of action adopted by a