Global Innovation Management by J. Christopher Westland

Innovation toolbox

An invention does not become an innovation until its commercial potential is developed – a process with many steps which may extend over years. There is always a better way to do business, and everyone, at one time or another, can benefit from the knowledge gleaned from innumerable other projects like theirs.

This area of the site is designed to provide you with a ‘toolkit’ of skills that will help you maximise the opportunities available to profit from creative ideas, and assist you in achieving seven essential goals in commercializing an innovation:

To put in place the machinery for continuous and habitual innovation, and the retention of these for future implementation
To craft a compelling business model to accompany implemented innovations
To manage the complements, as well as acquire the necessary competences and assets (together these comprise your capabilities) to exploit your innovation
To craft an intellectual property strategy that will erect effective barriers to competition in your chosen market(s)
To devise and continuously adapt your entrance strategy to make the most of your capabilities
To effectively manage the creative individuals necessary for your innovation to succeed
To accurately value your innovation and its business model, and determine the risk of the venture (– both will be demanded by potential investors)

Each ‘workout’ in the toolkit contains a step-by-step investigation to select, structure and finely design the components of a successful innovation and its business model. The table below shows the skills you’ll develop in each workout. Click on the links in the left-hand column to access each workout.

Workout	Goal	Skills
Workout #1	Create an innovation that meets predefined specifications	Assumption reversal
Workout #2	Redesign a successful product or service	Attribute segmentation
Workout #3	Assess the potential of an innovation	Quiz Consumption chain analysis Feature mapping
Workout #4	Design a video game console	Using morphological boxes to create a business plan
Workout #5	Understand real-time brainstorming	Groupwork [NB: This is a group activity]
Workout #6	Define an entry strategy	Creating a vision Business planning Milestone setting Customer identification Combatant identification
Workout #7	Breathe new life into an old product	Re-differentiation Re-segmentation