Innovation Management Basics

Innovation management describes the systematic organization of innovation. Thereby especially the planning, organization, realization and monitoring of the innovation activities are very important. The company culture has formative influence on innovation and innovation management. Anymore aspects like innovation strategy and innovation environment take a key role.

The innovation management process starting with an idea / invention towards to innovation is separated into multiple steps. The search for ideas, the idea evaluation, the realization, and finally the evaluation.

Innovations vary in their degree of innovation into two innovation types: continuous innovation and discontinuous innovation.

There are two typical triggers for innovation. On the one hand, there is “technology push“, that means technological development boosts innovation (for example – fast internet access). On the other hand is “market pull“, there market demand exists, where there is no offer (for example the demands of extreme athletes).

Innovation activities also separate regarding the involvement of alien. Closed Innovation says that innovation activities focus on company intern places (for example R&D Department). Whereas Open Innovation includes different external interest groups into innovation activities. Some inspiring video material can be found in the innovative video clips section.

Sources: Modelle des Innovationsprozesses, Verworn und Herstatt, 2000; IT und E-Business Skript, Friedrich-Alexander-Universtität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 2008;

Published by

Christoph Baier

Christoph Baier matches Startups & innovative Companies for Cooperation & Open Innovation. He is Managing Director of Ambivation and Co-Founder of founderio. His focus is on (Industrial) Internet of Things, PropTech, CleanTech and Energy Startups and shares insights into the cooperation of startups and companies as a speaker or interview partner. Prior to that he studied Innovation Management & Entrepreneurship at TU Berlin, wrote his master thesis about the learning capability of B2B startups and the cooperation with external partners. During his studies he cofounded START Berlin and is now an alumni.