Innovation management for an industrial product

Successful innovation in industrial products can be carried out by means of a carefully planned innovation process. This paper describes such a process carried out in a company that faced heavy financial losses due to an obsolete product mix.The total process took about two years, during which a new industrial product was acquired, the organization was adapted, the market introduction was started, and financial resources from outside the company were successfully obtained.The innovation process can be divided in different steps: objective formulation, potential product search, licence search or product development, negotiation, and finally market introduction.The first two steps were carried out in order to direct product development and licence search efforts as effectively as possible. As a result potential product licences were traced, on which none or only little furtner product development was needed. All this was fairly simple and took only a few months.During the negotiation (the next step), a very strong internal promotion of the most promising potential product licence was carried out at all decision levels, whilst at the same time the acquisition of this product licence was negotiated. Altogether this period lasted more than one year.Finally, a licence for a new product was acquired, after which the market introduction was started, resulting in a multimillion guiders turnover within less than two years after the start of the innovation process.The success of this product innovation resulted from careful planning and management of the whole process by an innovation manager, in cooperation with a task force, and from the considerable effort spent on internal company promotion. At the same time, pulling the selected new product through problem areas, and turning it into a commercial success, was the most creative part of this product innovation process.