1.10.1. Company information and the company in relation to radical innovation capabilities
This company is part of a globally established company. The main focus of the company is on safety, sustainability and high end specifications in the area of textile technology based materials.
The company carries out its activities on six different final markets: - Personal protection (22% of sales)
- Defence (9% of sales)
- Sport & Leisure (23% of sales)
- Aerospace & Automotive (11% of sales) - Infra & Environment (28% of sales) - Other (7% of sales)
An activity in which they excel is making fibers. This eventually gets a textile application. Fibers can be converted into fabric architectures. These are then processed into textiles.
Some recent radical innovations that have taken place within the company are: - The fuselage of an airplane is made of artificial material.
- The company has entered the oil- and gas market. Make of composite materials they have developed pipes.
- Electric cars are too heavy. With composite materials lighter cars are made.
- The plates of a ship have been produced with lighter material. Because the ship is lighter, fuel is saved.
- Geosynthetics. These are artificial dikes. These dikes have fiberglass. These registrate every movement and pass it on to a central.
- Measuring instruments for the heart rate and oxygen integrated in clothing. This is for instance suitable for firefighters, when they must enter a burning building.
The aim of the company is to develop technologies that are suitable for multiple applications. When a technology has only one application, the development process is mostly too expensive.
1.10.2. Various concepts within the company 1.10.2.1: Radical innovative capability
Within this company they have a separate group of employees who are engaged in radical innovations throughout all day long. The manager prefers radical innovations actually take place within the team.
The moment you have a good idea you form a team. It is true that the forming of such a team can sometimes change when specific expertise is required.
Besides developing radical innovations with internal teams, it is also possible to outsource such activities as a company.
The manager provides for the development of radical innovations preference by using the following structure:
The manager says that many investments are necessary for radical innovations, because you are starting with a completely new product. In bad times there are more incremental innovations than radical innovations.
The difference between the incremental and radical innovations shows the manager with the following figures:
To divide the technologies that the company develops they make great use of the technology – customer matrix:
When the company develops a totally new technology (radical innovation) and reaches new
customers they can earn a lot of money. To reach this, sometimes cooperation with other companies is needed.
When a company develop radical innovations it is very important to see how the new product is marketed in the right way and how this new product can reach the consumer.
The company ranks the determinants of radical innovative capability as follows: (10 = very important, 1 = absolutely not important)
1.10.2.2: team learning
Within teams, it is sometimes difficult to achieve a good learning climate. People often work a long time at a certain position and are working according to a fixed pattern. When you always work according to a fixed pattern, the ability to develop innovations is declining sharply.
Teams working with external parties are often more open to ideas and develop better and faster than a radical innovation team that only works internally. For this reason, this company often tries to set up developments with external parties.
To achieve a good team learning experience within a company, the following things are important: - Put an external manager on a project when several parties are involved within the project. When you have an external manager, you could prevent the manager being too busy with other everyday activities.
Determinant: Score: Extra information:
Openness capability 10
Autonomic capability 9 As an employee, you must be free.
Integration capability 7
- Have access to a place. This should be outside the existing business unit.
- You must have a good administration system. This should not be much paperwork and bureaucracy, but an orderly administration.
- Provide a strong team and trust the team. The manager must also function as a good inspiration. The company ranks the sub processes of team learning as follows:
( 10 = very important, 1 = absolutely not important)
1.10.2.3: support leadership
A team that focuses on radical innovation needs coaching leadership. Leading your employees in a bureaucratic way doesn’t work within a team focused on radical innovations.
When you have professors as employees, you do not have to tell them exactly what to do as a leader. As a leader, you must make sure that you build up certain frames, your employees should stay in. This is seen as entrepreneurial leadership.
Important things you should convey to your employees as supportive leader are: - Trust
- Motivation - Inspiration - Perseverance
Developing new products is associated with highs and lows. This is mentioned the ‘hype curve’. As a leader, you must help employees through the lows.
Sub process: Score: Extra information:
Information interpretation 10 Everything has been invented. The trick is to understand business and combine the right things. Much knowledge is not optimally used for earning money.
Information distribution 9
Knowledge acquisition 8
A hype curve looks like this:
After reaching the peak, the negative press begins. As a leader/ manager, you should be there for your employees at these moments. It is important to talk together and, if necessary, look for additional help. This could be a student or an external company.
The company ranks some aspects of support leadership as follows: (10 = very important, 1 = absolutely not important)
Aspect: Score: Extra information:
Giving positive feedback to the employees.
10 Giving positive appreciation to the employees.
9 Giving an additional reward to employees when they perform well.
7 A reward has only a temporary effect. Many times, a team reward is even more important than an individual reward.
1.10.2.4: teamwork cohesion
The teams within this company are highly multidisciplinary. To develop radical innovations it needs people from the production and finance department.
Important aspects that, in the eyes of the manager, contribute to the cohesion of a team are: - Manufacturability of the product. It must be possible to produce in large quantities.
- Market severability. Do people have money for this product? Will people want to buy the product? - Reproducibility. Could you make the product in large quantities? What is the cost price in that case? Sellers and technicians should work together to find an optimal combination between these three aspects.
The company tells the following things about some aspects of teamwork cohesion
1.10.2.5: team climate
A good team environment is the most important aspect within a company. The success of your company depends on it.
Important aspects to achieve a good team environment are: - Openness within the team
- Honesty between the workers within the team
- Extra time is accepted, you are willing to stop energy in the team. As a team you are actually a small business.
Aspect: Score: Extra information:
Team members must be willing to sacrifice for the team, they should be open for business cooperation.
Soft side
Team members must follow the group perspective and not do what they want themselves.
Hard side When an employee generally does what he wants and doesn’t see the groups perspectives a discussion with this person and with other persons of the team will follow. The strength of a team lies in the fact that each individual makes a clear contribution, but an individual must not act solo.
The company ranks the core elements of team climate as follows: (10 = very important, 1 = absolutely not important)
1.10.3. Relation between the different concepts
The R&D manager has two suggestions for adapting my research model: -Move the variable team learning more to the left side in the model. - Mention in the middle of the model the variable ‘trust’ or ‘eco – system’.
Besides these two things the manager tells that it fits more incremental innovations to put the process in a model. If you want to reach a good radical innovation you’ll have to give employees
more room. You shouldn’t prescribe fixed models for them.
Core element: Score: Extra information:
Focus on the target 10 You go for results with your business, that’s the most important
thing.
Social – emotional support 8 As an employee, you must feel well to achieve a particular goal.
Emphasis on the resources 8 Resources are of secondary importance.
Guidance on extra pay 7