Invention and Innovation

The report first and foremost tries to identify whether invention and innovation are different terms conveying distinguished meanings or these are merely just the different names. It also discusses in detail about the “Amazon Go.” concept and with this try to understand what, how, where and why innovations happen. Proceeding with the ultimate goals, there is a need to understand both invention and innovation. An invention is like an idea and process for the development of a new product, which has not yet entered the market but rather is available in the form of a sketch, design or model. The point of time an invention becomes available on the market, the invention becomes an innovation then. Just going by this definition and not discussing a lot about these two terms, this can be said that both invention and innovation are interrelated terms.

The concept behind the “Amazon Go” can produce a dramatic impact on bricks-and-mortar retail. The move is expected to reduce the hassle of checkouts, which customers generally experience during rush times. Shoppers will just require to scan the Amazon Go app for smartphones and enter only through a gated turnstile. The move works on cameras and sensors for capturing and sensing products being removed from and put back to shelves. However, it all depends now on how Amazon and other grocery companies across the globe deploy this move.

Invention and innovation may not necessarily be linked to one name or an organization. For example, Apple’s iPhone is an innovation, not an invention. Apple has not invented ‘GPS’ but has only incorporated the concept in making the iPhone series of phones. However, since, people recognize the incorporation of the GPS in a phone as being initiated from Apple only, they recognize it as an innovation led by the Company.

An inventor those who make the invention can have several ideas in their minds; however, all those ideas cannot be called inventions but except those that have been transformed into something real. This conveys a fact that an invention has no fixed deadline and can rather go to a longer period of time to actually become applicable. On a similar note, all new things cannot be considered an innovation. For example, a checkout free experience might be a new concept being introduced by a company such as Amazon but the company solely does not hold the credit to being the first to introduce it. There are rather more companies in this world to have moved towards a ‘no checkout’ strategy. Tesco and Sainsbury’s are a few of other companies to have initiated the move for shoppers.

In Context to Amazon Go

Since an inventive idea takes a long time to be actually known as an invention, there is no assurance of whether the idea, process, or design would at all be transformed into an invention. The idea can also fail. However, there is no such scenario surrounded around an innovation irrespective of whether it becomes a success or fails to deliver. For an example, the “Amazon Go” has performed well in testing. The duration of the testing was far less than a typical invention process. The innovation is live now in relatively less amount of time.

Innovation is important for companies as such to Amazon for many reasons. It helps to address an issue, which customers are facing on a constant basis. The invention does require a long time-consuming process before being converted into a real solution. The time thus consumed may not yield the desired goal. Hence, this will be a loss of manpower and spending and would create frustration for its bearer. Checkout is a common issue, which many shoppers do not like. The issue has persisted in a brick-and-mortar retail until recently world leaders in retail like Amazon, Tesco and Sainsbury’s have found and developed the solution.  

Innovation plays a critical role in addressing new markets and creating opportunities for users. The invention does also create new opportunities such as it did with Electric Lamp known to be as created by Thomas Edison. However, in a competitive environment, it is more beneficial and effective to prepare something innovative from available resources than creating an entirely new concept, model or sketch. Time is a factor that in significant cases does not allow to be continually focused around creating something new and never seen things. Linux, which is the computer operating system, recently developed a management innovation namely “Open Source Development”. The innovation is a solution to management issues such as establishing an effective coordination between individuals who are geographically dispersed. Open source development is being created by using resources that are publically available such as online collaboration tools.

Diversity can be extremely beneficial for the company as it helps to bring in together distinguished viewpoints and thereby, widening up the box of ideas. However, there should not be more diversity as it could produce unproductive results if not coupled with an effective teamwork, an open culture, a clear vision, and the leadership.  An effective teamwork helps to convert ideas into products and services. An open culture creates a platform to help different viewpoints be expressed. A vision assists in identifying the useful only from the list of many. On top of all, these all require a leadership approach in managers to make all these a possibility.   

Teamwork, Organizational Culture, and Leadership in Innovation

A success requires a CEO that has leadership skills in him or her and has a clear vision towards mission, goals, and values. These are a few key elements, which guide the vision and the team towards becoming a commercialized company. In addition, a leader cannot alone make a difference to the business. It rather requires an assistance in the form of employees who possess desires to be a part of the team. It means that having only the technically sound professionals would not alone ensure the accomplishments of projects as few projects may also require an extra from employees other than their skills. This is where an inspiration to be a part of a challenging project becomes critical to the success of such project.

A strong positive culture is important to become a part of it and deliver a successful accomplishment of a project. Such cultures can be inherited into employees if the company has leaders capable in constructing a clear vision towards adopting an innovation. It is important for an innovation that leaders at all levels of managerial positions have a positive and supportive attitude towards innovative ideas. A strong culture in a company will boost employee engagement. Such a working environment would result in more profits and customer and employee satisfaction. A positive culture is a requirement of both private sector and non-profit organizations. An admirable culture will expectedly reduce employee turnover, enhance employee engagement, create business opportunities, and conduct challenging projects in private organizations. This will help non-profit organizations in motivating staffs and volunteers towards an utmost dedication to social issues.  

Four Ps of Innovation 

The four Ps of innovation should not be confused with that of marketing. In the context of innovation, it means population, price, penetration, and purchase frequency.

The population in case of “Amazon Go” would particularly be the local people residing near to Amazon’s convenience stores. Consumers prefer to shop from stores that are situated close to their residence. With concern to this fact, the concept of Amazon Go should work. However, few customers may not like so many cameras capturing their movement. It would affect their privacy. An overcrowded store and inclusion of new products on shelves could be a test for the technology being used in the concept. The concept deploys a huge number of cameras being installed across the store to capture the movement and the sensors along shelves to detect the movement of products. However, there are no electronic sensors installed in products, which are necessary to monitor the movement of each and every item. The Amazon Go concept is by and large follows an AI intelligence to capture the footages such as it does on roads to capture footages of vehicles. However, even with this technology, this would become difficult to figure out the one suspected people from the crowd of many. Additionally, a fresh inclusion of products would require giving training to cameras to help it sense these items.

The 4Ps of Innovation and the Innovation Funnel for Amazon Go

It is unpractical to say at this point in time that the Amazon Go would be a success considering that it is yet to be tested in case of a huge traffic in stores. It is very early to give any opinion to the profitability of this concept considering that operational costs are high and also that margins are very narrow. Going by the current scenario, in case of a huge footfall, Amazon would simply rely on keeping consumers in queues. This is like not serving the purpose as the intention was to avoid consumers being in queues. Things may possibly change in future as firms like Amazon would continue to produce solutions to deal with cons of Amazon Go. An enhanced technological efficiency thereby would impact the operational cost. “Amazon Go” should look on attaining a larger-scale business with this concept. Probably, this would deny its competitors from copying the success.  

An innovation funnel is like a storehouse that has a number of ideas entering this. However, only a few of those ideas are only utilized. For an innovation to become a success, it is necessary that the mouth of the funnel is made bigger to make it be able to constitute a large number of ideas. This requires an expansion of the knowledge base and an access to a wide number of ideas to generate new concepts. The funnel neck should be narrowed down to efficiently screen the ideas and to be focused on productive opportunities. The goal is only to apply ideas those that are productive.

 “Amazon Go” should find out a number of solutions to deal with the current challenges. For this, its leaders must learn to create a great organizational culture. The leaders must be able to direct its employees towards a clear vision that is to make the Amazon Go an improved concept. The mouth of the innovation funnel needs to be expanded to generate a huge number of ideas. A teamwork between managers and employees in Amazon should ensure the selection of ideas only that are worth benefitting.

Frugal innovation is often and initially designed for emerging market customers. Frugal innovation produces low-cost and well-capable services and products initially targeted upon consumers in emerging markets. The three vital attributes of a frugal innovation are cost reduction, optimized performance levels, and targeting the core functionalities. It means that innovation would be called a frugal when it meets these attributes. Firms in developing markets are well equipped with the skills and resources to develop frugal innovations. They efficiently make and maintain low-cost products and services. They also deliver on customer value. For example, an energy-efficient and affordable microwaves from Galanz and water-saving washing machines from Haier. Tata Chemicals make an easy-to-use, low cost, and portable water purifiers. Godrej and Boyce offer cost-effective refrigerators. These examples produce sufficient illustrations to the argument imposed for a frugal innovation.

The Role of Frugal Innovation in Amazon Go

Developed economies do also adapt to frugal innovation. For example, Siemens make portable and low-cost healthcare products. Logitech manufactures a cheaper computer mouse. Nokia still offers the budget phones. Bosch and 3M are recent examples of multinational companies adopting frugal innovations for the Indian market. It is, therefore, important to go with frugal innovation to maintain a balance between the price-sensitive attitude of people and demand conditions in emerging countries.

From the perspective of a frugal innovation, it can be said that the concept used by Amazon lacks to strike a balance between price and demand conditions. The demands for a checkout free shopping is huge but consumers do not want this at the cost of their privacy, which will be affected from so many cameras installed in the store. Additionally, in case of a large gathering, Amazon would certainly make people wait in queues as the technology at this point in time lacks to identify the movement of each one of the gathering. It means that the demand condition was identified but not implemented appropriately. In addition, the operational cost is huge; however, lacks the efficiency.

Conclusion 

Therefore, “Amazon Go” should be given a sufficient time before making any opinion to it like whether this is a potential move or just the waste of time, money and hard works. There are a few areas of improvement such as the efficiency of the system in terms of performance and the operational cost. The future will expectedly witness technological advancements and hence, would impact the performance of the Amazon Go.  

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