Innovation

Product attractiveness can be substantially increased when offering service extensions alongside. These services may create additional demand for the product by addressing new customer groups. The main challenge however is the development of services which increase customer value of the product to such an extent that leads to a purchase decision. The paper presents a method of idea generation for new product-service combinations following a systematic search approach for possible options. The basic concept of the suggested method as well as its search methodology for identification of promising services will be discussed using the example of the electric car, which so far lacks mass market success due to inadequate business models.

The aging workforce and labour shortage due to lacking young qualified employees are topics which today primarily concern small and medium-sized businesses in unattractive regions. The Federal Statistical Office expects particularly dramatic changes in the age structure of the German workforce in 2017 to 2024. How can companies prepare for these changes? And is it a mere obligatory task or could there have been unexploited potential overlooked so far? Recent German studies provide new insights.

The purpose of this paper is to show how corporate strategy can be aligned with the production system of an enterprise to derive an operations strategy. Consequently, the operations strategy is employed to define prospective needs of agility. The research methodology builds upon action research that is realized in a long-term approach with two joint manufacturing companies. Both can be classified as small and medium sized enterprises (SME). The preliminary findings underline the importance of a holistic view towards agility emphasizing organization and people as major drivers of agility. These drivers are addressed by means of a playful intervention with LEGO-bricks.

What makes Austria sufficiently interesting as a manufacturing location so that companies continue to invest, while other locations in the world offer more advantageous conditions which are relevant to manufacturing? It will always be possible to find regions offering cheaper labor, lax rules of operation in terms of environmental criteria or fewer regulatory stipulations. Yet, highly successful enterprises continue to count firmly on sites here. It must surely be down to the driving spirit of change as so aptly defined in the Economist „...to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress...“. As clear and as simple as this may seem, the difficulty lies in translating this into everyday corporate life. It takes courage to look beyond the boundaries of one’s own experience, while we are always immersed in a framework defined by people of different characters. Only by seeking and accepting what ...

The research project “Open Innovation in Life Sciences” (project duration May 2008-April 2011) aims at the development and implementation of new innovation strategies and concepts for SMEs in the life sciences segment. In particular inside-out and outside-in processes in joint innovation projects beyond firm boundaries are analyzed. The life sciences segment is known as being highly research intense and interdisciplinary. As a result of the growing complexity of innovation processes, the development of cooperative, i.e. open innovation strategies for SMEs has become more important. SMEs can gain the capability to tap crucial innovation potentials by bundling distributed complementary knowledge. The article describes the development of a method which might help to evaluate opportunities and risks of different innovation concepts. This may serve as basis for decision-making regarding the implementation of a predefined innovation process. Project outcomes are expected to be an ...

Innovation is important for the competitiveness of an enterprise. Patents protect innovations and enable companies to exploit the fruits of their R&D. This article focuses on the effects of product piracy upon our Western patent system. It shows that in the future there will be only two alternatives for the strategic IP-management in sectors exposed to piracy threats: to patent the inventions in all relevant markets or to maintain them as trade secrets. This paper highlights the parameters as well as results.

Change Management and transformability of factories are usually not planned in an integrated way today. While Change Management focuses solely on the change process itself, this process is mostly ignored in the planning process of a transformable factory. The synthesis of these two approaches allows a holistic support of change processes, in order to promote innovations for example, upgrade employee competencies and use the planned technological, spatial and organisational transformability thoroughly.

This article tries to answer the question what implications innovation management will have on the future performance of companies. For this purpose a new approach has been developed that considers the time factor to be the determining element for the success of an innovation which also includes an invention. The developed model analyses the entire innovation process on several levels as well as the innovation performance and innovation capability of a company. This model permits to highlight critical elements within the company and the specific project, on the basis of existing data. This allows to give recommendations for optimisation and to evaluate modifications.

With regard to the current competitive environment companies, and especially small and medium sized companies, ought to combine their competencies through the formation of strategic networks. This bundling permits the organizations to realize economies of scale, offer combined services and generate innovations. But especially innovation networks make great demands on network management. Based on the framework taken out of the manual “Managing Innovation Networks” by the VDI this article therefore outlines the particular management functions for innovation networks and reviews related literature. The purpose of this analysis is to point out suggestions for the management of innovation networks and to give an overview of research findings.

An innovation process based on the principles of Total Technology Development involves the systematic use of available know-how and employment of the technology potential. The thus generated innovations focus on actual needs and requirements. There is a new definition for measurement of innovation: The increase of “System Ideality”. This principle forms the base for the strategic direction of the company. An essential part of this approach is the functional view of the system with an analytical valuation. This article describes the theorem of the new management method.