Section Twelve(not comepleted)

Question 1

what is innovation?

Answer 1

Innovation means thinking of a new idea and putting it into action. This could be in the form of a new product or a new process

Question 2

what is product innovation?

Answer 2

making new gods/services or improving existing ones .eg car with new features

Question 3

what is process innovation?

Answer 3

Puting in place new or improved production and delivery methods e.g. amazon prime unlimited one day delivery

Question 4

what is the research and development department

Answer 4

new ideas can com eform anywhere in the busines, but many business’s have a Reserach and Development dpartment that drives innovation

Question 5

why do buisnes’s want to inovate ?

Answer 5

busines are alwasy loking for ways to inovate as it can help them to stay ahead of competiton, expand their markets and increase their market share.
The presure to inonvate is greater in some industries than others-eg. in the techonology busineses ned to constantly inovate new products or they wil fal behind their competiotion

Question 6

Benifits of inovation

Answer 6

businesses can initialy charge higher prics for inovative products and services before their competitors bring similar products to market
Being innovative can be god for a firms reputation- if they have been the first to launch exciting new products in the past, people wil natrualy be interested in their future products.
inovations in processes can help ad value to existing prodcuts and services
Businesses with lots of inovative products can take advantage of economies of scope

Question 7

Drawbacks of inovation

Answer 7

Inovation can be a very costly an dtime consuming proces- busineses risk runing out of money if they invest to much into R&D and dont get the prodcuts to the market quickly enough
Busines can end up wasting resources by devoping something customers dont want
busines might not be able to produce the new product on a large scale at a low enough cost ther is no guarented return on investment
Busineses risk ruing their reputation if the inovative product is poor qualityo

Question 8

How does innovation affect finance?

Answer 8

R&D for inoative prodcuts is expenisive , so the finace department mighgt ned to raise extra working capital

Question 9

how does innovation affect operations?

Answer 9

inovation in production methods might mean that the operations department has to set some of its budget aside to spend on expensive new machinery.they wil also ned to organise trining for employes to get them up to sped with new methods

Question 10

How does innovation affect marketing?

Answer 10

the maount of market research a complany does is increased when researching a new idea- the risks and costs are high so they ned to be sure customers want or ned the product.inovative prodcuts require changes to the marketing mix

Question 11

how does innovation affect HR?

Answer 11

inovation can mean there’s a change in stafing neds- if a company sudenly decides to focus heavily on R&D they might need more skiled staf.HR also neds to make sure that the busines has the right culture for inovation to thrive.in a culture where staf are scared of the consequencing of failing , workers are unlikely to want to take risks.HR neds to find ways of encouraging empoyes to take risks,e.g. by rewarding people who try new things

Question 12

WHAT is kaizen ?

Answer 12

the kaizen approach to innovation is by encouraging employees to improve the way they work and the processes they use all the time .over a long time these small kaizen changes can add up and lead to innovation
Another important part of kaizen is to give workers some control over decision making. whenever there’s a problem, workers are encouraged to ask ‘why’ until they get to the root of the problem.this creates a working environment in which innovation can thrive

Question 13

benifit of kaizen

Answer 13

the benefits of using kaizen to drive innovation are that the company doesn’t have to spend lots of time and money on research and development, and the process becomes more efficient all the time

Question 14

drawback of kaizen

Answer 14

the kaizen approach probably won’t t lead to innovative new products as workers aren’t really encouraged to think about the wants and needs of the customers
The kaizen mindset also means that workers are focused on making small changes to their own job rather than thinking about big changes they could be made to the whole process- this means that big innovation leaps are rare

Question 15

What is an intrapreneur?

Answer 15

intrapreneurship is when employees within a business are encouraged to solve a problem by coming up with innovate new ideas

Question 16

what do intrapreneurs do?

Answer 16

Business allows intrapreneurs to take risks and experiment with lots of different ideas until they find the most productive and effective way to complete a task- their solution can then be implemented across the whole department or company

Question 17

The advantage of an intrapreneur?

Answer 17

it is done alongside the intrapreneurs regular role, so the company isn’t wasting money employing someone just to try new things.Even if the entrepreneur doesn’t find a solution to the problem. they will still have produced some work along the way

Question 18

define benchmarking

Answer 18

benchmarking studies other business with excellent quality standards, and aims to innovate by adopting the same methods, companies can sometimes do this by joining benchmarking groups where firms agree to share information about their way of doing things

Question 19

where can benchmark occur?

Answer 19

business can benchmark internally - they can study activities in efficient departments and use what they learn to innovate processes in the departments
it is also possible to benchmark across different industries

Question 20

Advantages of benchmarking?

Answer 20

benchmarking tends to motivate staff.it’s more encouraging to introduce a process or a product that you’ve already seen working successfully somewhere else than it is to introduce something unknown

Provides early warnings to businesses about technology or methods that might allow their competitors to overtake them

Question 21

disadvantges of benchmarking?

Answer 21

it won’t directly lead to new products-competitor products are likely to be protected by a patent or copyright and you need to be careful what ideas you take from them
process cant always be transferred between corporate cultures-what works for one company might not be suitable for another company with a different culture

Question 22

what is a patent?

Answer 22

a patent is a way of regesitiring and protecting a new intenion

Question 23

what is a trademark?

Answer 23

if you want to protect your business’s name logo or slogan you can register it as a trademark so that nobody else can use it

Question 24

what is copyright?

Answer 24

It is illegal to reproduce other people’s work without their permission

Question 25

6 stages of new product development:

Idea

Answer 25

The business comes up with new ideas, explores and devlops existing ideas or modifies competiors idea’s

Question 26

6 stages of new product development:

Analysis and screening

Answer 26

the business wants to see if the product can be produced and sold at a profit

Question 27

6 stages of new product development:

Development

Answer 27

the R&D department develop a working prototype

Question 28

6 stages of new product development:

Value analysis

Answer 28

the business tries to make the product good value for money

Question 29

6 stages of new product development:

Test marketing

Answer 29

the business sometimes sells the new product in a limited geographical area, and then analysis consumer feedback on the product ,price and packaging.

Question 30

6 stages of new product development:

Launch

Answer 30

a succesfull launch requires enough stock if the product to be distributed across the market