Page 299 - Operations Strategy

274 CHAPTER 8 • PRoduCT And sERviCE dEvEloPmEnT And oRgAnisATion

Figure 8.2 The relationship between creativity, innovation and design

Is an essential That is transformed into a That defines the
ingredient of… practical proposition by… characteristics of…
Creativity Innovation Design Products and services

The use of Doing Defining the looks, The nature and
imagination or something arrangement and characteristics of the
original ideas new workings of something organisation's o erings

The innovation s-shaped curve

When new ideas are introduced in services, products or processes, they rarely have an
impact that increases uniformly over time. Usually, performance follows an S-shaped
progress. So, in the early stages of a new ideas introduction, although (often large)
amounts of resources, time and effort are needed to introduce the idea, relatively small
performance improvements are experienced. However, with time, as experience and
knowledge about the new idea grow, performance increases. But as the idea becomes
established, extending its performance further becomes increasingly difficult, see
Figure 8.3(a). But when one idea reaches its mature, ‘levelling off’ period, it is vulnerable
to a further new idea being introduced that, in turn, moves through its own S-shaped
progress. This is how innovation works; the limits of one idea being reached which

Figure 8.3 The s-shaped curve of innovation

Idea approaches
its natural limits

Performance introduction Obstacles to Performance Progressive

Slow
introduction
of new
further
development innovative
overcome ideas
Time Time
(a) The basic S-shaped improvement in performance (b) Innovation following multiple S-shaped curves

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