Development of a strategic innovation management process : by using the example of a new established product group within a global active enterprise

Abstract

The capability of an organization to be innovative represents an essential pillar to ensure a long term success of the business in a competitive environment. Therefore, the organization has to introduce the right products with new valuable benefits for customers at the right time on the market. To guarantee such a behavior in an effective and efficient way a structured guidance for all innovation related topics is necessary. Especially the focus from a strategic point of view on the Front-End of Innovation part of the complete innovation management process can push the organization towards an effective management for strategic innovation objectives and resulting in novel as well as valuable products for the customer to generate a competitive advantage. This Master Thesis deals with the topic of the development of a strategic innovation management process for a new established product group within a global active enterprise. The developed process should contribute to improve the performance towards a strategic behavior regarding innovation activities and should help the organization to strengthen its position in the market and become more competitive on a medium term of view. The theoretical framework focuses on the topics related to innovation and innovation management and provides an overview of the available process models for the execution of innovation tasks and approaches to form a suitable innovation strategy for an organization. This part represents the theoretical foundation for the development of the process and the evaluation of the qualitative research approach with the aid of expert interviews. The empirical part of this paper provides at the beginning information regarding the current position of the product group in the market as well as faced challenges. Main focus is on the evaluation and interpretation of the collected data from the expert interviews as well as the subsequent development of a suitable approach for innovation activities within the product group organization. Based on the information from the theoretical framework and the results from the expert interviews a structured innovation management process with main focus on the Front-End of innovation phases has been developed and explained. The process provides a structured guidance for all strategic innovation activities from the formulation of the innovation strategy until the end of the New-Product-Development process. Thereby the developed process is characterized by a high degree of flexibility with enough room for creativity to ensure a perfect fit in the professional environment of the established product group for a regular deployment.