Innovation in turbulent times Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Innovation in turbulent times - Essay Example Same way it is difficult for a mobile phone manufacturer to sell mobile phones with the phoning option alone because of the entry of advanced mobile phones with advanced features like, audio, video recording, internet surfing options etc. â€Å"Radical innovation is crucial to the growth of firms and economies. Firms at the leading edge of innovation tend to dominate world markets and promote the international competitiveness of their home economies† (Tellis et al). For example, Microsoft has innovated new operating system windows for personal computers around two decades before. They were succeeded in monopolizing the world software market thereafter. Even though the introduction of Windows operating system brought market leadership to Microsoft, they never stayed inactive. Periodically they modified the Windows operating system based on the technological growth and the changing requirements of the customers. The recent global recession has revealed the fact that only innovat ive organizations may have better future in the highly competitive world. Innovation is the bread and butter of organizations. Moreover, the future of many organizations depends on their ability to innovate because of the tough competition in the market. In short, innovation is the much needed entity for the organizations to exist in the current globalized and highly competitive business world. ... The leadership needs to play an active role in the innovation process. Leadership styles and functioning are undergoing drastic changes at present in order to encourage the employees to come out with innovative ideas. It is difficult to anticipate that every worker will contribute innovative ideas; however, the chances of at least few workers providing some innovative ideas are bright for all the organizations. In order to encourage the workers to come out with new ideas, most of the current organizations are giving ample freedom to the workers. Autocratic styles of management have given way for democratic styles of management in order to increase the worker involvement more in the innovation process. However, still some prominent companies are not considering the worker involvement necessary for the innovation process. Apple Company is one best example for that. Apple always develops new products secretly and they are not giving any ideas about the new product they are going to deve lop to their employees. Only the concerned people will know about such things. â€Å"A leader who believes in Trend Spotting and believes in capitalizing on emerging trends and technologies can set the example for staff to create an openness that new ideas and trends are brought forward† (Innovation Perspectives - Leader's Role in Trend Spotting). Trend based innovation is another major thing developed in the business world in the recent past. For example, Apple has recently introduced its touch screen phone (iphone) in the market and it became a huge success. After watching the customer trend towards this type of touch screen phones, Nokia, Sony and Samsung like big companies also immediately introduced their