304.4.4: Managing Innovation
Innovation and Change - Managing Innovation
Great business leaders know that in order to stay ahead, their companies must offer something to consumers that the competition is not. The difference between a traditional organization and an entrepreneurial organization is that the latter is purposeful about seeing change as an opportunity. Entrepreneurial leaders are open to new ideas and its employees are hired to translate original concepts into success. This is called innovation, and without it, there would not be an entrepreneurship.
Innovation is about looking at things differently and evaluating business opportunities; it’s about doing things better and easier (Bateman & Snell, 2012). It does not always involve a new product. There are many reasons why an entrepreneurial organization would seek opportunities for innovation. This paper will discuss four of them.
New Market Innovation – New Market Innovation is taking a product that the company already has and “marketing” it a different way altogether (Bateman & Snell, 2012). An example is a product called Skin So Soft which is sold by Avon. Traditionally, “Avon Ladies” have sold makeup, perfume and bath products door-to-door. One of Avon’s more popular bath products is called Skin so Soft. In the 1960’s, it was marketed and sold as a bath oil (Reynolds, 2002), but word began to spread from Avon customers to farmers to gardeners and back to the Avon ladies, that Skin so Soft was not only a wonderfully scented bath luxury, it was also an excellent mosquito repellent (Lacy, 1988)!
By the mid-1990’s, so many customers were purchasing Skin so Soft that the executives at Avon began to ask their employees (the Avon Ladies) if they knew why they had such a following. When the executives heard that Skin so Soft was also being bought for the insect repelling properties, they saw a new market for an existing product! Avon added a non-DEET repellent and began marketing Skin so Soft Bug...