Free Essays,College Free Essays,Free College Essays at Anti Essays

1 Introduction
Businesses exist in dynamic and competitive environments nowaways. Thus, the number one
strategic goal of businesses is to gain and maintain competitive advantage. By programs of
continuous improvements companies try to reduce costs, to enhance quality, and to increase
speed of responsiveness to customer needs. Additionally, most businesses have some sort of
innovation program on their agenda to stay ahead of (or at least keep in pace with) their
competitors.
Still, finding a common ground on what innovation is and what business elements to consider
when implementing innovation seems intricate. The research on the topic of this term paper
reveals a wide range of terms associated with innovation. Some examples are 'research and
development (R&D)', 'product innovation', 'corporate entrepreneurship', 'intrapreneur',
'inventorpreneur', 'think tanks', 'continuous improvement', 'change program', 'market research',
'systems engineering' and 'optimization process'.
This term paper lays the fundamentals to understand innovation and its implementation in
businesses independent from the type of business on a strategic level.
2 Innovation fundamentals
A gateway to innovation is the success story of the manufacturing company 3M. One of the
award-winning products of the last century is the Post-it® note developed by two employees
of 3M. In 1968 the researcher Spencer Silver developed an adhesive that was 'not working
properly' as a glue. So he tried marketing his product within 3M to discover a use for his nonadhesive
glue. Unfortunately his mission was without immediate success. Years later, the
product developer Arthur Fry found a meaningful purpose for the 'non-working' thing.
Subsequently 3M worked out a product to be marketed. Since then 3M's notes have been sold
worldwide in 400 different...