E-Novation in Large Corporations

This chapter explores the lessons learned by large corporations that have been pioneers of e-novation. These pioneers have much to teach us about the opportunities for competitive impact and business value. These are explored within the framework of Porter’s Five Forces model. The impact of e-novation on employees and, especially on the employee-employer relationship is explored to reveal possible insights. Although a significant portion of these pioneers are in the high tech sector, many of the insights are broadly applicable to all sectors of the economy. A case is made that e-novation is well on its way to broad adoption in the business community. Recommendations are offered for those wishing to take up the challenge of e-novation.

Defining E-Novation in Action

Managing product development in an efficient manner is considered a crucial element for a company’s survival in today’s world. Current markets usually consist of highly fragmented segments of customers looking for customized and differentiated products at lower costs. Intense competition has also pressured companies to launch the products faster to the market in order to reap the planned benefits. Usage of collaborative Web-enabled models for innovation and product development, what we refer to as E-Novation, has become more popular as a result of responding to the aforementioned challenges. From technological point of view, the E-Novation models are particularly enabled through collaborative Web solutions, Web 2.0 tools, and Web-based virtual worlds. This chapter deals with the application of such collaborative Internet-based technologies in the product development and discusses their use in various stages of product development process; from idea management to prototyping. Based on existing literature in the area, the analysis of four cases (Dell, InnoCentive, Ponoko, and Implenia), participant observation and experience with such applications and semi-structured interviews with both managers of such projects and the projects’ stakeholders, this chapter demonstrates that new organizational models and skills are required to manage interdependencies internally and externally in collaboration through E-Novation. It also provides some insights about the future trends and opportunities in this era and guidelines for successful implementation of these technologies in reality.

A Business Model Framework for Second Life

This chapter provides a framework to analyse the marketing and promotion advantages of Virtual Communities. Virtual Communities offer companies the possibility to carry out a new products and services promotion and to develop trustful relationships with customers. The key element in the use of Virtual Communities for these purposes is the wide amount of customers that can be reached. Virtual Communities present the aptitude to generate social influence and knowledge sharing among customers. As a consequence, it brings out the increasing number of skills, competencies and “knowledge profiles” of each customer involved in the virtual environment. The framework is consequently applied to Second Life in order to analyse three different business strategies that companies usually implement by using this platform. The first strategy allows companies to perform the placement of their products/services in a dynamic form. The second strategy provides companies the possibility to have a better knowledge of customers’ needs in order to develop products and services that satisfy customer’s expectations. Finally, the third strategy allows companies to develop high brand awareness.

E-Novation Collaboration

Research and analysis has revealed the issues, controversies, and problems related to collaborative communities and the role they play in e-novation. It has also revealed useful insight about, and solutions to, many of these challenges. Business leaders can benefit by learning from the insights offered by these pioneers. This chapter offers a process by which business leaders can leverage to add a community of their industry ecosystem. Harnessing e-novation through collaborative communities is now a strategic opportunity for any organisation.

E-Novation and Start-Up Companies

By 2010 the potential to launch a “startup-in-a-box” with an E-Novation framework (Pattinson and Low 2008) supported by social technologies to foster intense collaboration among core employees will become both a reality and essential. Only through a combination of framework and social technologies can startups and founding employees keep pace with the changing business landscape and generate a rapid amount of knowledge to sustain sufficient advantage in the market.

E-Novation Customer Relationship Management

In the early 1990’s, marketing theory experienced a paradigm shift from a transactional approach focusing on sales to a relationship one. This shift was due to several limits of traditional mix marketing based on the “four P’s” and to the change in the market business models. In fact, the growing role of branding in mass markets, the development of services marketing, and the importance of network and human interactions in business are some of the main reasons behind relationship marketing emergence. Relationship marketing is then aimed at developing and maintaining mutually profitable relationships with customers and even stakeholders. In the era of technology evolution and Internet, customer relationship management (CRM) is moving forward to better manage, drive, and keep value-added relationships. However, CRM is, first of all, a company strategy and a shared vision that involves organization, people, and processes in satisfying and retaining customers. This chapter deals with the concept of customer centricity and its development, customer lifecycle with acquisition and retention, and finally the issue of CRM implementation.

Next Generation Collaborative Information Platforms

Current new and next generation e-novation collaborative platforms are explored through a “Day-In-The-Life-Of” scenario in 2020 based on key semantic concepts drawn from chapters within the E-Novation book. Key themes for an emerging e-novation collaborative platform include: triple convergence (before and after), Web 3.0/4.0 – the Web is a brain, redefined collaborative communication, virtual/augmented reality, service-dominant logic (SDL), marketing and innovation, open-source creation, development and distribution, digital branding, CRM redefined, complexity and SMEs, e-novation office, e-novation curriculum, social graphing e-novation, and sustainability platforms and innovation. These themes are discussed both in relation to the current new collaborative platform and how they may develop from 2010-2020. E-novation will be the innovation and marketing social and business service.

E-Novation Program Office and Roadmap

This chapter introduces a new organizational entity for government organisations, the E-Novation Program Office (EPO). The basis for this structure is researcher experiences of the divide between organizational decision-making capability and the actual delivery of innovation using new technology initiatives within Australian organizations. Key EPO decision-making mechanisms include cognitive mapping, road maps, scenario planning, and complexity thinking. The proposed model of the EPO is informed through author experiences within a variety of Australian organisations and government enterprises focusing on technological innovation rather than other forms of innovation. The EPO serves to guide innovative actions, prioritization of effort, and better execution by acting as a counterbalance between technology, strategy, and delivery to ensure the successful introduction of innovation. The robustness, flexibility, and adaptability of the EPO arises from modeling processes arising from research in the governance of enterprise wide service orientated architectures for information systems. The EPO explicitly supports the central tenant of government organisations, the provision of service to citizens. Most importantly, service is taken to be the provision of knowledge and skills (Vargo & Lusch, 2004) for the benefit of citizens.

Service-Dominant Logic Foundations of E-Novation

A major change is taking place in most national economies, and even the world economy. It has been variously described under rubrics of globalization, global flattening, and global outsourcing, and has resulted in debate over how firms and nations gain and retain competitive advantage. Innovation has become perhaps the most often used term to capture the process of achieving this competitive advantage.

Online Branding

This chapter contributes to the active debate about the significance of branding in the online channel, by exploring the opportunities and challenges associated with online branding. A discussion of online branding objectives and how they might be achieved is complemented by an exploration of the unique facets of online branding. Case studies of successful brands with interesting approaches to branding in the online channel provide interesting illustration. Finally, some thoughts on the future of online branding conclude the chapter.