The business environment is becoming competitive with every day passing. The business concerns are fighting against rivalry to get competitive edge and to earn profitability. Technological innovation is one of the most useful drivers to get competitive success in different sectors (Schilling, 2009). The markets are becoming competitive and their different elements are effecting the operations of business concerns. One of the basic reasons behind increased competiveness in market is adoption of globalization by companies. Different types of innovations can be performed by businesses. Product innovation is highly useful in offering a new product with distinguished features. On the other hand, process innovation can be useful in making different activities or actions effective. The ultimate advantage of innovation is enjoyed by the customers because they get different variety of products. Innovation is highly useful for the betterment of society and economy. Innovation helps in providing better health facilities, controlling pollution and providing medical facilities.  

2. Reviewing innovation management

2.1. Types of Innovation

In business concerns, management can apply innovation to products, services as well as to the processes. There are different forms of innovation which are highly useful because of associated advantages with them. Product innovation is one of the most useful forms of innovation. In this form of innovation, the products are offered with new features by making modifications in the previous one or by manufacturing a new product and offering to the customers (Schilling, 2009).  Business concerns focus on product innovation to attract the customers. New product development is considered to be one of the ways of product innovation. Companies can apply innovation to the consumer products to increase sales while they can also apply it to the manufacturing machineries as well as equipment for better performance.

Service innovation is a process of offering services to the customers in creative ways. Business concerns can apply innovation to the services they offer but it may be as useful as product innovation. This is due to the fact that service innovation is not visible or tangible like product innovation. It is fact that people focus and appreciate inventions, and inventions can only be identified in products but not in services. So, the service innovation is less remarkable and less noticeable. Service innovations normally focuses on providing a service by focusing on new as well as highly creative business model and approach. By applying innovation to current service, business concerns can get an entirely new service. Process Innovations are less famous than product and service innovations. But, there is huge societal impact of process innovation as compared with other two forms (Schilling, 2009). In process innovation, ways and methods of performing any task are improved. For example: In past, people used to stitch clothes with hands by using needles and thread, but now sewing electrical machines are available in the market. The change in the method of stitching clothes is the example of process innovation. Likewise, companies can use innovative and technological equipment to complete operations. By adding innovation to the processes, companies can save resources like time, money and labor cost etc. companies can focus on changing the traditional business model with innovative one to effectively manage the process and to improve performance. Radical and incremental innovations are of great importance in business concerns. Radical innovation measures the extent to which products or processes differ from the previous ones. On the other hand, in incremental innovations, the products or processes are slightly changed from the previous ones (Schilling, 2009). The business concerns can adopt innovation on the basis of their competencies as well as skills. When a firm adopts innovation on the basis of its current knowledge and capabilities then it is considered as competence enhancing innovation. In case, when the firms adopt innovation by obsoleting the previous competency or knowledge then it is termed as competence destroying innovation. Two other types of innovation are very useful for the companies. These include architectural and component innovation. In architectural innovation, an entire design as well as system of the product is changed. While in component innovation, one or more components of products are altered.

2.2. Innovation strategy & organization structure

Innovation is highly useful process for the business concerns and its outcomes are mostly positive. It is vital for the management of companies to select the most appropriate innovation strategy. Innovation is helpful in increasing company’s performance as well as for economic growth of country. In order to adopt beneficial innovation strategy, it is important for the business concerns to have proper resources, information, structure, collaborative processes and effective team (Schilling, 2009). Companies must focus on research and development to create most useful innovation strategy. Different modes can be used by companies to develop innovation. These modes can be collaborations via joint ventures, licensing as well as outsourcing. Companies can focus on emergent or planned innovation strategy to get the desired outcome. After designing the innovation strategy, it is important to organize the workforce to implement and to get maximum output from them. Management can focus on Mechanistic or organic modes of organizing. In case of mechanistic mode, specialized roles are assigned to the team members and they perform the function in hierarchical form, by reporting to the bosses. In case of organic mode for organizing, companies focus on flexible roles as well as network structures (Schilling, 2009). The innovation strategy is made by the research and development department of the business concern. Teams of innovative and creative personnel are made to conduct researches. Team members are highly creative and come up with new as well as innovative ideas. Innovation is taken by differently by different firms and innovation strategy depends upon their structure. Different companies focus on cross-functional teams to lead and organize the innovation procedure. The team size can be different in different companies. When the team size is large then more administrative costs and high interaction issues occur. Teams must be made by including people with different capabilities to effectively handle the innovation process. Diversity in the team is necessary for making the innovation process successful. Management can focus on developing different teams including Functional teams, Lightweight teams as well as Heavyweight along with Autonomous teams to perform functions effectively. Effective team leadership is also required to achieve the innovative goals easily.

2.3. Innovation models

It is not an easy task for the management of business concerns to focus on innovation. Innovation can be highly complicated and difficult task for some companies due to different reasons. That is why, it is important to focus on different innovation models and apply them effectively to get maximum benefits from innovation process. S-curve model of innovation is highly useful. It is significant in measuring the speed of adoption of the innovation. S-curve is used to represent the life cycle of technological innovation on the basis of different phases. (Schilling, 2009) was of the view that when technology is introduced then it starts improving slowly because of lack of understanding. After certain time duration, the knowledge and understanding of technology is developed among personnel. After the specific time limit, technology tapers off. S-curve is highly useful for the managers of innovative firms to know the performance of innovation against effort and money spent. When the performance of technology is high, then it can be easily adopted as well as improved. But, it is important to put effort and time to make the technological innovation’s performance better. Otherwise, the S-curve will not show correct relationship. It is also important to know that every technology may not reach its limit but replaced by discontinuous technology. S-curve can be influenced by external factors, other than effort and money. These factors include fluctuations in markets, unknown limits of technology as well as lack of understanding and resistance towards adoption of innovative technology (Schilling, 2009). It is observed that different innovations related with product development fail and management has to suffer. By focusing on product-process life cycle model, management can handle the innovation for products and processes. Companies can focus on introducing the new products or they can make changes in the current ones.

2.4. Inter-firm Collaboration for innovation 

It is highly useful for the profitable business concerns to focus on innovation because it is important phenomenon for growth and development of business. Organizations can perform innovation activities alone or by collaborating with other corporations. If a company choses collaboration for performing innovative activities then it can gain various benefits. These include huge chances of objective fulfillment, less risk, low cost as well as quick performance of innovation activities. It is important for the business concern to analyze its competencies as well as capabilities of company selected for collaboration. A business concern can get different advantages by collaborating with other companies. These include gaining required capabilities or assets rapidly, requirement of low funds, huge flexibility as well as chances of Learning from other business concern along with divided risk and expenditure (Schilling, 2009). For performing innovative activities, a company can collaborate with other company by focusing on different methods. Two companies can make formal as well as informal Strategic Alliances to collaborate with one another. Creation of joint venture is another way of collaboration for business concerns. In joint venture, two firms can collaborate with each other to form a new firm/company for carrying out innovation activities. Businesses can focus on outsourcing, in which an organization acquires goods or services from other business concern instead of manufacturing it. This means that a company can get innovative products and services from other company and sell it to earn profit. Another useful method of inter-firm collaboration is to make Collective Research Organizations. Such organizations are made collaboration among different companies easy and smooth. It is highly useful for companies to choose the partner company carefully. The decision regarding selection of partnering company can be made on the basis of its resources, objectives, opportunities, weaknesses as well as by focusing on 5 forces proposed by Porter along with competitive edge and strategic goal (Schilling, 2009). It is important for a company to make legal contracts with the partnering company to ensure collaboration output.

2.5. Exploration, exploitation, radical innovation

It is important for every firm to focus on innovation. There will be two consequences of innovation; either the firm will grow or it will simply die. Different factors are necessary and play important role in innovation. The size, culture and structure of companies differ from one another. Company’s size as well as its structure has great influence on the possibility of innovation inside it. Different company’s structures may support creativeness, research as well as innovation. On the other hand, some firms focus on development actions to improve its performance. The organizational structure of various business concerns supports both innovation as well as developmental activities. The firms with big size can easily focus on innovative activities because they can easily get finance and have capabilities to bear the cost (Schilling, 2009). Large firms can easily accept challenges and risks. It is also important to note that big firms can have inefficient research and development department because of loss of managerial control and focus on specific technologies. On the other hand, firms with small size are flexible and innovative. Different big companies can be divided into small sections and departments to focus on different culture and structure. Innovation is highly effected due to the extent to which it focuses on rules as well as regulations to shape staff’s behavior. This phenomenon is known as Formalization and can make business concern strict. Standardization is a process which tells the extent to which actions are completed in an identical way. It is highly useful for smooth running of business concern but can resist change and innovation. The centralized firm in which decision making authority is with the top management focuses on innovation.  Companies in which mechanistic Structures are prevailing focus on formalization as well as standardization (Schilling, 2009). Such types of structures are useful for operational efficacy but not for innovation.  Organic organizational structures have less emphasis on formalization and standardization, and highly useful for creativity and innovation. In case of loosely coupled organizations, actions are not tightly incorporated; incapability of performing all activities and relying on outsourcing, not useful when close coordination is required.

3. In-depth analysis of Innovation teams

Business concerns focusing on product and service innovation must focus on integration of skills and capabilities. According to (Clark and Wheelwright, 1992), it is difficult for the big companies to integrate capabilities due to several factors. These factors include complicated hierarchy, large number of workers, communication issues as well as continuous operating pressures etc. Corporations focus on different types of team structures for accomplishing tasks. (Clark and Wheelwright, 1992) identified that one of the major forms of team structures is heavyweight project teams and such teams are absent in majority of the mature corporations. If the management is able to manage the heavyweight teams effectively then it can result in better communication, high commitment as well as quick problem solving. In this research, four types of team structures were identified including function teams, light weight teams as well as heavyweight teams along with autonomous teams. In function team structures, the workforce has to work under the supervision and perform the roles in disciplined ways. One of the major benefits of functional team structure is that the performance and team functions are handled by the same manager, thus alignment of authority as well as accountability is present. On the other hand, the struggles made by the team members are evaluated individually, without depending upon the entire team success. In case of lightweight teams, a representative is assigned to the team who has to coordinate different functions or activities performed by the members. Usually, the person assigned as representative has a knowledge about functions, and capable of performing coordinating activities. On the other hand, the representative has no authority to assign and delegate tasks to the members (Clark and Wheelwright, 1992). Authority should be given to the liaison person so that he/she can effectively manage the project or task. This type of structure is not useful for making the projects successful because representative’s duty is only to communicate and coordinate with the members but cannot provide them guidelines or instructions.  The heavyweight team structures are highly useful and these are different from lightweight team structures. In such type of structures, a person has full authority to manage the team roles and functions. An individual from senior management is assigned as a leader, he/she has proper knowledge as well as expertise and capable of getting the work done from subordinates. The individuals involved in the development process are influenced by the leaders. The leaders have right to evaluate the performance of the team members in the developmental process. This type of team structure is highly useful for big firms because expert personnel manage the team progress. In case of autonomous team structures, members from different functional areas make a team. The members coordinate with each other and are led by leaders who have full control over resources (Clark and Wheelwright, 1992). In this type of teams, the performance and efforts of each team member is evaluated by the leader. Such teams focus on own strictures and practices but do not focus on existing business conducts. The behaviors and attitudes are molded by leader by providing incentives as well as awards to the members. Such teams are also famous as tiger teams, highly useful in product and process development. Such teams focus on redesigning the existing product or process instead of developing a new one. Senior management may sometimes be reluctant to form such types of teams because authority is delegated to the team leaders. This action may not be useful for the companies because the authority must be with the top management. Senior management must be involved in the decision making process regarding teams and developments. Heavyweight teams are considered to be highly useful for the business concerns that want a change or develop (Clark and Wheelwright, 1992). However, different factors are necessary to make the heavyweight teams effective. The main factor is staffing and selecting highly skilled and capable team members. In addition, it is important to select the capable and expert leader for the team. The leader must be capable of evaluating the success of team members, and should be able to delegate the tasks effectively. The leader must be capable of making schedules as well as setting deadlines for the development tasks, should be capable of motivating the members and must ensure system integrity. It is the basic role of heavyweight team manager to identify the customer needs by proper research and studies. He/she must have proper insight about the market factors like competitors, dealers, suppliers and customers. It is important for the heavyweight leaders to coordinate with the engineering sub-functions and to provide guidelines about product development. An important role to be performed by the leader is proper communication. He/she must be able to communicate the needs of customers as well as product details to the development team. He/she must be able to communicate with the members to provide them proper guidelines, to resolve conflict and to create harmony. The entire responsibility of making the development plan successful does not lie on the shoulders of team leader. But, team members have to play an important role in making the development and innovation programs successful. The team members must show commitment towards their duties and must use resources in efficient way to make the development process successful. The duties must be performed efficiently by the team members and should timely communicate with the leader for proper guidance. Heavyweight teams are highly useful for making the innovation process successful and to meet the innovative objectives set by the organization.

4. Conclusion

It can be concluded that managing innovation is not an easy task. The innovation processes can be successful by adopting most useful innovation model, by focusing on proper innovation strategy and by building effective teams. It is important for the management of business concern to make innovation strategy on the basis of its capabilities, expertise, and organizational size together with its structure. Heavyweight teams can be highly useful for the companies to manage the innovation process but require resources, skills, capabilities and proper guidance.

References

Clark, K. B. and Wheelwright S. C., 1992. Organizing and leading 'Heavyweight' development Teams. California Management Review, 34(3), pp.  9–28.

Schilling, M.A., 2009. Strategic Management of Technological Innovation. 3^rd edition. Canada: McGraw-Hill