often choose to build a startup company around a technological
innovation. This will provide financial and skill-based resources that will
exploit the opportunity to develop and commercialize the innovation.
Once the entrepreneur has established an organization, the focus shifts
toward its sustainability, and the best way that this can be achieved is
through organizational innovation. However, innovation can be brought
to market by means other than entrepreneurial startups; it can also be
exploited through established organizations and strategic alliances
between organizations.
INNOVATION AND CUSTOMERS
An innovation must add value to customers to make them purchase or
consume the product or service or perceive an improvement. An important
part of the exploitation process is ensuring that the innovation adequately
fulfills prospective customers’ needs. The better the innovation fulfills
customer needs, the more likely customers are to adopt it. A common
mistake technology companies make is to focus on the technological
capability of their offering rather than on how that technology can satisfy
customer needs. It is important to emphasize that a customer is anyone who
purchases or uses a product or service. Customers can include students who
purchase a book in the university bookstore, patients who use services in a
hospital, or members of the public who use the services of a local library.
Customers can also be internal to an organization. University lecturers who
offer a service to students are in turn customers of the library, for example.
Doctors who deliver a service to patients are also customers of support
laboratories, and librarians are customers of the library’s computer service
department. When we use the term organization in this book, we refer to the
organization around which innovation is focused. This can be an entire
company, a department within a company, or a team of individuals.
EXAMPLE: The development of the blockbuster drug Viagra transformed
its creator, Pfizer, into one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies.
However, if an alternative use other than the original focus on heart
conditions such as angina and hypertension had not been found, then the
company would have written off millions of dollars of R&D investment. It
is not only the innovative idea but also how an organization manages the
exploitation of that idea and its fit with market need that determine success.
INNOVATION AND KNOWLEDGE
Innovation is built on a foundation of creativity and sometimes on
invention, resulting in the creation of new knowledge and learning within