INNOVATION AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

INNOVATION AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT - Essay Example For example, Apple Inc was on the verge of destruction in the 80’s and 90’s because of the huge competition from arch rival Microsoft. However, the company was able to introduce some innovative products such as iPhone, iPad, iPod, etc at the beginning of 2000. The rest is history now. Apple Inc. is currently the most valuable technology company in the world and they are the second largest in terms of market capitalization. According to Rigby et al, (2009, p.2), â€Å"innovation is both a vaccine against market slowdowns and an elixir that rejuvenates growth†. On the other hand knowledge management (KM) is the process of discovering, developing, utilizing, delivering, and absorbing knowledge inside and outside the organization. The aim of KM is to meet current and future needs of an organization (Poorebrahimi et al., 2012). As in the case of innovation, the ultimate aim of KM is to improve the competitive power of an organization. If knowledge is the raw material, data will be the finished good for an organization. If data are the building blocks, then knowledge is the finished house. In short, knowledge management is extremely important for an organization. This paper analyses the importance of innovation and knowledge management in improving the competitive power of modern organizations. ... These phones are modifications of Samsung’s previous smartphone; Galaxy S2. In other words, S3 and S4 can be described as examples for incremental innovation. On the other hand, Apple has introduced world’s first touchscreen phone (iPhone) at the beginning of 2000. No other phones available in the market had touchscreen technology at that time. Therefore, iPhone can be described as an example for radical innovation. â€Å"Incremental innovation modestly improves a firm’s products or processes or fine-tunes its business model. Radical innovation significantly improves existing products and services or replaces them with new ones† (Susman et al., 2006, p.16). Radical innovation occurs less frequently than incremental innovation since radical innovation is an expensive act compared to incremental innovation. There are two types of organizations in the market; leaders and followers. Leaders always develop innovative and new products whereas followers try to im itate those products. For example Apple was the first one who innovated the touchscreen phone. Samsung, Sony, Nokia and many other mobile manufacturers followed the path of Apple after watching the success of iPhone. According to Tellis et al (2009), radical innovation is crucial to the growth of firms and economies. Both radical and incremental innovations are necessary for an organization to sustain its competitive power. However, radical innovation seems to be more effective in improving the competitive power of an organization. According to Rubera, & Kirca (2012), radical innovation is more effective than incremental innovation. For example, Microsoft is one company which introduces many innovative products such as Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows