Innovation At Amazon Go: Differences Between Invention And Innovation, And Types Of Innovation

Innovation and Invention

The whole assignment is mainly based on the case and example of Amazon Go. The cases of innovation in the stores, leadership and commercialization, innovation funnel dm frugal innovation shall be lined with that case study. Innovation and invention different concepts, while organizational vision, leadership, culture and teamwork play a great role in shaping innovation and commercialization. The innovation funnel has a distinct role to play in the business and innovation while there are diverse roles played by frugal innovation in the business world. All these different concepts and statements shall be explained and linked with the main spirit of the assignment.

P1, M1 (LO1) Explaining innovation and determining its importance to organizations in comparison with invention

Innovation and invention are the two different peaks of the same mountain. Though innovation can be suggested to be as the specific kind of change that adds some importance to a preexisting thing or product or idea, invention can be suggested to be as something new, novel and unprecedented (Roberts, 2018). It can be said to be a thing, which the world has never seen or watched before, or known before. For example, the birth of electric filament bulb by Thomas Alva Edison can be said to be a kind of invention while, the development of low power filament bulbs can be said to be innovation.

In context of the Retail and supermarket industry, the technology incorporated by Amazon Go, that is the customer has not to wait for the billing and can walk out of the store with the bill being attached to his prime account can be said to be invention. However, if the organization makes some further changes or development in the whole mechanisms can be termed to be then innovation. Most of the innovations are in certainty made by making changes to existing things. For inventing something, a person or organization such as Amazon Go needs to have technical skills (Roberts, 2018).

While for ensuring proper innovation, both technical as well a marketing knowhow is quite necessary. Invention purely depends on the ideas held onto by the inventor and is purely based on experimentation, while innovation comes as a result of issues faced with previous and existing things. It is born out of the demand to include good things in a preexisting thing in order to make it more apt and usable (Trott, 2012). Invention such as the on the Go billing system introduced by Amazon Go is a kind of invention which is done by its R&D department. While, any developmental changes to be brought in it shall be ensured by any person in the company like any technicians or other people (Steiner and Camargo, 2014).

Organizational Vision, Leadership, Culture, and Teamwork for Innovation and Commercialization

The following contrast between the Invention and innovation is the thing that they require and the needs or demands that they fulfill. The invention or creation of any new product, idea or service requires specialized aptitudes to breathe life into the thought, while innovation or the advancement requires specialized and in addition showcasing abilities to add onto something (Matthews and Bruggemann, 2015). Another point of difference between them is that the place or idea from which each of its conceived or received. Thus it can be clearly said that invention in the idea of developing or bringing something fully new in the world, while innovation means making constant development in it (Westland, 2016). Invention comes first and then innovation.

Invention can bring in different kind of advantages for the organizations such as Amazon Go:

• Improves quality of life: Invention helps in developing and upgrading the quality of life. The fact of invention has brought in and introduced multiple things, ideas, products and service that have helped to ease the lives of common people. It has given them with different kind of advantage (Biemans, 2018). The invention brought in Amazon Go shall not only benefit the common people and improve their style of living but also shall benefit the company at a large by increasing its profits and scale of operations in the market.
• Spurs the process of innovation: Invention brings in innovation. Invention is the first step of introducing any new kind of social or technological commodity, or services or ideas. With the emergence and change of needs, the existing product or service is being developed and rectified and it is being made better and more fort for daily use. Innovation also involves bringing down the cost of any existing product so that it can be reached unto by the masses. This, invention brings in more innovation.
• Creates employment: For creating invention, the R&D department of Amazon Go employs inventors and technicians. These people engage in creating and inventing new things and ideas for the company (Druker, 2006). Thus, in this way, more employment is being generated.
• Created new industries: With the introduction and giving life to new kind of goods and services. The mass production of that thing takes place after the invention. The mass production is done and the thing becomes more popular for day-to-day use. This new kind of industries is also born out of the new kind of goods and services. For example, with the invention and introduction of online go billing system, a new kind of industry has been created to which the Amazon Go can be referred to and classified.

Innovation can bring in different kind of advantages for the organizations such as Amazon Go:

• Giving with greater competitive advantage: Innovation and development in the existing product and service helps it to make better as compared to other. This gives a competitive advantage to the organization undertaking the innovation.
• Business alignment: Innovation helps in aligning the actions and decisions of the organization with the set objectives and goals of the organization (Kleinknecht, 2016). Thus, the organization finds it easier to accomplish all of its objectives.
• Creating a broader customer base: Innovation helps in giving better and updates services and products to the customers. The customers are more benefited and thus the company succeeds to create and maintain a stronger customer base.
• Increasing business value: the business value increases with the incurring of more innovation. The business finds it easy to earn more profits and take up more ventures and diversify all of its activities in different others places lying in its industry.

Organizations can foster and develop an environment and culture of innovation by motivating its entire staff and recruiting effective and efficient leaders in the business. The staffs have to be encouraged to be creative and find out new solutions to the issues with the preexisting products and services of the organization (Bessant and Tidd, 2015). More resources have to ploughed and invested in the business and skilled staffs have to be recruited. Efficient leaders and managers have to be made to work in order to motivate and guide the staffs. In these ways, the organization can foster innovative spirit in the working space.

The different sources of innovation are:

• The unexpected: Unexpected or unknown events lead to discovering or developing of something. For ex: The playing of guitar at beyond the limit of amplifiers led to the development and innovation of distortion. Based on unexpected sound that was discovered, instrument companies started producing and developing distortion boxes and pedals.
• The incongruity: The unmet needs of the customers guide the business to take up steps to bringing development and innovate on a preexisting product (Valikangas and Gibbert, 2015). This incongruity also paves path for innovations.
• The process need: The business organization identifies the weak points or shortcomings in the existing products and services and takes steps to develop them, thus paving path for further innovation.
• Industry and market change: With the change and development in technology, an innovation may not be possible at a time. However, with development and availability of infrastructure, the innovation after some point of time becomes plausible (West, J. and Bogers, 2014).
• Demographics: Change in income, age, population, education and other factors affect the need of developing and changing a particular good or services. Thus in order to fit to the changing scenario, innovation becomes necessary.
• Change in perception, meaning and mood: Change of perception of customers shift their consumption pattern and demand pattern. Thus, in order to fit properly to the changing demand pattern, company innovate their products and services.
• New knowledge: New rather discover or knowledge available to the firms instill a spirit of innovation in the working space.

P2 (LO1) Explaining the way by which organizational vision, leadership, culture and teamwork can shape innovation and commercialization.

Organizational vision can be termed to be the driving force of all the activities that are taken up by any business organization. The organizational vision helps to deliver and design different kind of activities that have to be taken up by a business organization (Solomon, 2017). All the organizational events are based on the vision of the organization. The innovativeness of a company is defined by the fact that what kind of vision does it hold. If it holds an affirmative kind of vision, the company is bounds to take up steps in order to contribute to huge amount of innovation (Rusk, 2018).

This helps in the enhancement of the chances of commercialization of the different products and the services of the organization. A good leadership also helps the organization many of the ways. It can be said that a good leadership helps to instill good working culture in the organization. It eases the process of providing good amount of training to the staffs (Dodge et al. 2017). Further, a good and effective leader plays a great role in providing constant motivation to the staffs, evaluates their performance, and on basis of that, guides them at every point. The leaders play a great role in recognizing the contribution made by each of the staffs and the performance made by each of them.

Frugal Innovation and Its Role in Development of Amazon Go

The leader keeps a record of all the details related to each of the staffs working under him in the organization (Kesting et al. 2016). In case of the Amazon Go, the leader shall play role in organization the efforts of the staffs and making them in a unified manner so that the goals and objectives can be easily reached. The leaders also help in maintaining an encouraging, motivating, and diverse work culture in the organization. The liberal and flexible work culture can be easily engaged in the organization with the help of the leader (Prempew, 2017). The leader also ensures that the teams function properly and harmony is being maintained between all the members. Thus, the working in team spirit helps in easy accomplishment of innovation and other things in the organization.

The proper kind of innovation helps in successful development and bringing betterment in the existing services and the products. This helps the products to be better as compared to other same kind of products or services in the market. Thus, the company gains competitive advantage in the market. This following process also helps in the commercialization of the products (Dodge et al. 2017). As the products stand out to be better due to better innovation, development and research done on them, they become more acceptable to the customers. Thus, the customers start demanding more and more of the products.

This ultimately leads to more commercialization of the following product in the markets. Thus, it can be finally said that the organizational vision helps in developing and guiding the kind of leadership that has to be possessed in an organization. The style and kind of leadership helps in affecting the work culture and teamwork in the organization (Prempew, 2017). This factor ultimately helps in shaping the proper kind of innovation and with the advent of the right kind of innovation; commercialization is bound to be a success factor for the organization in this manner.

P3, M2 (LO2) Explaining the 4Ps of innovation the use of the innovation funnel to examine and shape innovation ideas

• Product Innovation: This involves bringing in change in the kind of product or services that are offered by the organization. As per the shift in the demands and needs in the market, different of the business organization such as Amazon Go bringing changes in their products and services (Alsanad and Abdel-Razek, 2016). For example, the demand for bringing in new kind of systems in the billing and forming of long queues led to the development and invention and innovation of the on the go billing system. This led and aided the company in standing out against all off the rivals and competitors in the market.
• Process Innovation: Many a times, innovation has to be stored in the process by which the various goods and services are delivered to the customers. For example, the change in the process of billing (that is on the go billing system developed by Amazon Go and bill to be sent to the prime accounts of customers) can be said to be an instance of change in the process. Many a times, the way and method by which products and services are sold are also changed and innovations are brought into it to fit the changing scenario of delivering goods and services in the market (Akgun et al. 2017). The changes in the process are brought in to meet the changing demands and needs of customers and various other things introduced by the other competitors in the market.
• Position innovation: The positioning of product in the product segment depends on the kind of customers that the company is aiming to approach. If it is seen that the average income of customers falls, then products lying in high prices and high qualities are shifted to the segment of low prices and average qualities in order to meet changing market scenario (Alsanad and Abdel-Razek, 2016).
• Paradigm innovation: Paradigm based innovations can be further explained to be the mental models which gives a proper and definite shape to what an organization or business is about. It involves bringing changes in the underlying mental models of the business and the things that it offers.

Innovation Funnel:

Any kind of product or process development is done with the help of the innovation funnel. The ideas are converged and push through broad end of the funnel. The starting point includes a broad range of inputs and then they are slowly channelized and refined with better learning, understanding and experimentation (Zandoval Bonazzi and Ari Zilber, 2014). Out of the different inputs, the best of the kind are selected and they are out for the completion and final introduction and commercialization of the product at the end (narrow end) of the funnel.

How Innovation is Developed, Embedded, and Measured in an Organizational Context

The innovation funnel in an organization helps in developing of a single and stable idea from the mixture or synthesis of different fragmentary opportunities and ideas. The whole process of selection and development of a final idea or product is done in an organization, with the help of the innovation funnel (Lazzarotti and Manzini, 2014). It eases the whole process of reaching unto definite and a single or handful of solutions only from several numbers of factors and opportunities.

P4, M3 (LO2) Explaining developments in frugal innovation and provide examples of how it is used in an organizational context

Frugal innovation is the phenomenon of developing some kind of technique or idea by which a certain kind of good or service or product can be made and rendered at much cheaper prices. This is done which there is acute shortage of resources and space for making the things. Frugal innovation leads to better performance of the alternatives most of the times as compared to the original product/ service. One of the biggest examples of development in frugal innovation is the development of micro and nano cars in the 21st century. Notable among them are the Nano car of the 21st century and the Toyota IQ (Sharmelly and Ray, 2016).

The sector of frugal has developed lot. With the shortage of resources and ever-increasing human population, the need of developing different kind of frugal innovation and developments of new techniques has been one of the utmost points of interest for many of the business concerns (Winterhalter et al. 2017). A frugal innovation such as the innovation of solar bulb in the Philippines can be said to be great gift for the daily lives of people as well as for the business world. The solar skylights manufactured by putting water and bleach in a bottle of soda. The bulbs can produce light the same amount as compared to a 55-watt bulb and even aid in reducing consumption of electricity (Rosca and Bendul, 2017).

These light bulbs can be used inside the space of Amazon Go in order to reduce the consumption of power and electricity. This shall help the stores to reduce the orb won costs and they shall be able to charge fewer amounts from customers. Thus, they shall also be able to gain competitive advantage in the market. Due to the advent and development of frugal, innovation, the “Grab and go” technology could be incorporated in the Amazon Go stores. With the development of on the go banking services, customers do not have to wait at billing counters. They can check out of the shop and the bill shall be deducted from their bank accounts through Amazon Go prime accounts (Knorringa et al. 2016).

Commercializing Innovation and Protecting Ideas

The data shall be automatically recorded with the Amazon Go stores with the automatic check out of the customers with those products they have purchased. It is also a huge frugal innovation as to saves paper, time, and money and helps the activity to be done at much lower costs. The next big frugal innovation is Foldscope (George et al. 2015). It is a high power microscope made from lens and a sheet of paper. It is much efficient and works in a same manner as compared to the costly microscopes. It can be used at health research centers and associations in order to do research and equip the researchers at a much lower costs. Medical research in the rural areas can also be promoted with the help of these kinds of tools (Hart and Halme, 2016).

Conclusion

The study has considered and incorporated several of the topics such as concepts of innovation and invention, ways in which organizational vision, leadership, culture and teamwork can shape innovation and commercialization, 4Ps of innovation and details and use of innovation funnel and lastly the development in the world of frugal innovation. The case of Amazon Go has been considered here in order to link the whole context of the discussion.

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