Figure 1.1 What’s the next big step in the mobile phone market

In the last week it’s very likely that you, or a colleague, has used a mobile phone, used the web to make a purchase or found a new route using their satellite navigation system. Within your organisation you may have looked for financial information on a spreadsheet or used the internal computer system to track the progress of a product or service. All of these innovations are relatively recent and have had a major impact on our social and work life

On a smaller scale, organisations increasingly adopt systems such as Total Quality Management and Quality Circles. These encourage employees to continually look for ways of improving quality, output and processes. The idea here is not to search for the next major innovation but instead to create continuous improvement through a series of minor innovations

This first section of the module will introduce the idea of innovation. You’ll see that having new ideas can include inventing new products, creating changes to existing models, changing the services that a company provides, changing the processes by which they manufacture products, or indeed all of those. Innovation is clearly a very wide ranging idea, relating to a range of activities from the invention of a brand-new technological invention through to the smallest change in how a single department in a small company might change its processes or procedure

Once you have seen what we mean by innovation, and seen that the term covers a very wide range of activities, Section 2 goes on to look at how innovation actually occurs

Whatever your job role, or your organisation, as an innovator your key aims are to identify, pursue and capture value from business opportunities. Section 3 looks at possible sources of new ideas and some factors that may help you to spot suitable opportunities. You then need to assess which of those opportunities are most likely to create growth for the company. Finally, you need to be able to present a business plan that will persuade decision makers to provide you with the funds for your new development

Section 4 then stands back a little and looks at the place of innovation within an organisation. It helps you to think about questions such as how the company can encourage all employees to come up with innovative ideas, and how the company can be innovative in relation to its business model