Planet Innovation: A Brief Overview

Discuss about the Importance Of Innovation And Entrepreneurship Of A Company.

The essay focuses on the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship of a company. These two factors are essential in order to maintain a competitive advantage in a business and ensure that the products sold by the company are unique and different. The essay focuses on the ways by which a company can use it to make it more competitive in the market. In order to understand the effectiveness in a proper manner, the essay takes into consideration the example of Planet Innovation. The company is a biomedical unit that focuses on developing new products. The effectiveness and application of innovativeness and the application of entrepreneurship in the organisation are the focuses in this essay.

Planet Innovation is a biomedical company formed in 2009 in Melbourne, Australia. Biomedical executives with a vision to develop products in a better and innovative manner formed the company. The aim of the company is to focus on commercial outcomes and meet the technical needs of the people. Currently, the company have about 160 brilliant and innovative product developers, which includes engineers, scientists and other experts that help in the building of the products. The company also set up branches in Chicago and clients are located all around the world. Top biotech companies around the world constitute the client list of the company. Planet Innovation has also been named as the most innovative company in Australia for the past three years (Planetinnovation.com.au, 2017).

According to Drucker, (2014), innovation is the application of solutions that meet the requirements of customers in a unique manner. This can be achieved by effective analysis of the market and the feedback from the customers. Most of the times, the concept is confused with the invention as it also involves making new things for the market. However, on a broader sense innovation is the ability to provide uniqueness to a product. It has the ability to become a trend in the market and ensure that the ability of products to satisfy customers does not remain monotonous. The fact that innovation only involves change or new idea in products had been countered several times. Bain & Kleinknecht, (2016) countered this by saying that innovation can also result in other fields such as management science and economics as long as new ideas are created. In the industrial context, innovation is created in order to meet the growing demands of the customers. In this context, certain characteristics of innovation can be defined that help in understanding the concept.

The Importance of Innovation

One of the characteristic includes the relative advantage it provides to companies. Improvement can be made in terms of service, equipment, the longevity of a product, impact of environment and much more. Hence, relative advantage can be taken companies that focus on innovation of products. The back dated products or materials are phased out in order to provide a place for innovative products (West & Bogers, 2014). Compatibility of the innovation method is also important in order to understand innovation. This is because the tactics used for innovating products needs to be compatible with the ways by which customers can use it. The compatibility needs to be maintained depending upon the lifestyle of the customers and the effort to embrace the tactics. In a company like Planet Innovation, these things need to be kept in mind in order to understand the tactics used for innovation. As stated by Tidd & Bessant, (2015) Product Innovation can manufacture products that are compatible with the everyday lives of individuals. This makes their products unique and propels them to be the leading business in the innovative world. However, the innovation applied in the products need to be simple so that customers can use it in a friendly and easy manner. User-friendly products prove to have an excellent level of satisfaction among the customers. Galindo & Méndez, (2014) stated that innovation has to based on the instinctive nature of the experts. It is, for this reason, the success rate of innovation is high for a company like Product Innovation.

One of the major characteristics of Planet Innovation is the fact that it creates and develops own products. Hence, the company can apply innovative tactics to each of its products so that it is not monotonous in the market. The application of such tactics makes the company the best in the innovation market. Currently, the company develops innovative products in the biomedical field, hi-tech as well as clean tech sectors. In order to strengthen its position in the market as the leading innovative company Product Innovation created a product named Zen. Zen is a thermostat that can be controlled using smart phones. Such an innovative product is indicative of the fact that the company ensures that the satisfaction of the customers is maintained. The use of this device can help in the portability of a customer. In this manner, the use of remote can be obsolete and people with smart phones can have access to the use of applications that are required for household purposes.

The Importance of Entrepreneurship

According to Carland, Carland & Stewart, (2015), the use of such methods of innovation can help in bringing about the popularity of a company. Apart from innovation, other tactics are also required in order to conduct a business successfully. One of the key factors is the encouragement of ideas from different sources. In Product Innovation, an internal initiative is taken called the Eureka Club that encourages the sharing of new product ideas. The stakeholders and employees provide their ideas to the company about the ways by which product can be innovated in the company. This helps in the formation of new ideas so that unique products can be made for the customers. This also enhances the chances of success in a company. Kirzner, (2015) observed that apart from innovation, entrepreneurship is also another important factor for the success of a company.  

Entrepreneurship refers to the creation of a new business that starts from being a small business enterprise. Kuratko, (2016) described entrepreneurship as the willingness of a person to develop and organise a bunch of people that are willing to share similar dreams with the industry. The risks involved are calculated and strategies are formed to mitigate the risks and ensure that the business is conducted smoothly. New opportunities in business need to be undertaken in order to understand the ways by which success can be attained. Entrepreneurship also refers to the ability to manage people in an organisation. Employees are the most valuable premise of an organisation and it is required that managers take care of this asset in a proper manner. The hiring and retaining of human resources is an important aspect of entrepreneurship. Schaper et al., (2014) stated that entrepreneurship is an important aspect for businesses that are involved in the innovation of products. This is because the employees manufacture the products and retaining the talents is an important aspect of any organisation. In this regard, it can be said that various tactics and strategies are used in order to retain employees in the organisation. This leadership as well as motivational tactics can engage an employee to remain loyal in an organisation. However, Storey, (2016) criticised entrepreneurship by saying that entrepreneurship gives rise to innovation which in turn destroys the traditional methods adopted by an organisation. In a way, this statement can be considered to be true because, in the modern world, the use of new thoughts, approaches and methods are more applicable in organisations. Working in a traditional manner, however, ensures that the organisational culture is maintained. Hence, innovation and entrepreneurship need to be done keeping in mind the culture of an organisation. 

Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Planet Innovation

In a company like Product Innovation, entrepreneurship can help the company to maintain its number one status as the global innovative world. This is evidenced by the fact that the company encourages ideas from employees in order to innovate its products and develop ideas for commercialisation. This provides encouragement and motivation to the employees, as they feel appreciated and valuable in the company. Thus, this is one reason for the success of Product Innovation in the modern world. McLuskie & McLuskie, (2017) is of the opinion that every innovation company needs to ensure that the entrepreneurship level in the company is maintained. This can help in formulating proper innovative tactics in the organisation. Product Innovation uses these tactics, forms a better solution for itself, and develops its products that are unique and satisfy customers.

Thus, it can be concluded that innovation is an important factor in order to maintain competitiveness in the business market. For companies seeking ways to innovate products, Product Innovation is a prime example. The ways by which this company can utilise its resources and make innovative products need to be a benchmark factor for other companies. Entrepreneurship also helps in the success of an organisation. This is because the motivation and proper leadership skill are important to retain employees in an organisation. Thus, innovation and entrepreneurship are required for the success of an organisation and the existence of these factors needs to be simultaneous. 

References

Bain, D., & Kleinknecht, A. (Eds.). (2016). New concepts in innovation output measurement. Springer.

Carland, J. C., Carland, J. W., & Stewart, W. H. (2015). Seeing what’s not there: The enigma of entrepreneurship. Journal of small business strategy, 7(1), 1-20.

Drucker, P. (2014). Innovation and entrepreneurship. Routledge.

Galindo, M. Á., & Méndez, M. T. (2014). Entrepreneurship, economic growth, and innovation: Are feedback effects at work?. Journal of Business Research, 67(5), 825-829.

Kirzner, I. M. (2015). Competition and entrepreneurship. University of Chicago press.

Kuratko, D. F. (2016). Entrepreneurship: Theory, process, and practice. Cengage Learning.

McLuskie, P., & McLuskie, P. (2017). Innovation and Entrepreneurship. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 23(1), 159-162.

Planetinnovation.com.au. (2017). Planet Innovation. Retrieved 5 September 2017, from https://planetinnovation.com.au/about/

Schaper, M. T., Volery, T., Weber, P. C., & Gibson, B. (2014). Entrepreneurship and small business.

Storey, D. J. (Ed.). (2016). Entrepreneurship and new firm. Routledge.

Tidd, J., & Bessant, J. (2015). Innovation and entrepreneurship (No. 3). Wiley.

West, J., & Bogers, M. (2014). Leveraging external sources of innovation: a review of research on open innovation. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 31(4), 814-831.