Innovation- beyond Technology and Product Innovation

The medical device industry is a hotbed of innovation. In today's intense competitive and fast-changing markets, innovative products or services have paramount importance for organizations to obtain sustainable competitive advantage either in lower costs or differentiation or both.

R&D staff or manager with technology background is easy to think the technology is the first consideration in innovation. Science and technology is No 1 factor, which may work in the university but often fails in the industry.

According Peter F. Drucker's article "The Discipline of Innovation", innovation starts with a conscious, purposeful search and analysis of new opportunities. The sources of innovation opportunities can be from without a company or industry:

• unexpected occurrences
• incongruities between expectations and results
• process needs
• industry and market changes

Three additional sources are from outside of a company:

• demographic changes
• changes in perception
• new knowledge

Product, process, market, organization, management, service, logistics, business mode, technology innovations can result from these opportunities. These sources will have different importance at different times, areas and firms such as the established and the start-up. New knowledge-whether science, technology or society - is just one in seven sources of innovation. Drucker emphasizes that knowledge-based innovations are superstars of entrepreneurship, demand many kinds of knowledge and long lead times, and is more market dependent than any other kind of innovation.

Product innovation can get idea from above opportunities. For example, aging (demographic changes) is a serious problem for society but it is an opportunity for medical device industry. I believe that the successful product innovation should be customer-oriented, i.e. meet current customers requirement (incremental and sustaining innovation) or create new customers and markets (great breakthrough or disruptive innovation). For medical device industry, customers may include patients, doctors and nurses.