The ability of an individual to successfully manage the innovation procedures of an organization, including all decision-making and other activities regarding the formulation and implementation of an innovation strategy, is known as his innovation management skills.

Simply stating, innovation management skills refer to the ability to successfully introduce something new, changing certain dimensions of a particular business and creating a substantial amount of new value for customers as well as the firm itself. The new value is created usually through the introduction of a new idea, product, or even process by creatively responding to external or internal opportunities identified.

Why is innovation management important

Innovation management is critical to having a sustainable business because it enables one to look ahead into the future and come up with new and creative ideas which the competitors would not have thought of.

In short, innovation management is significant because it is what helps a business remain competitive in the long run by letting it always stay ahead of competitors and have greater profit margins. The inability to realize the importance of innovation management leads to a company being stuck with its obsolete offerings, or at times causes it to go out of business, while its competitors begin to lead the industry by offering new and greater value to customers.

How to improve innovation management skills

For improving one’s innovation management skills, following are some effective measures that can be taken:

  • Do not attempt to control the innovation process. The concept of ‘control’ has the tendency of being attached with the ‘management’ of anything. This, however, must be avoided when it comes to innovation management. Before you get this statement wrong, it is worth mentioning that the process of innovation must be ‘optimized’ instead of being controlled. Innovation tends to get stifled in the existence of a strict and hierarchical chain of command. For the sake of fostering innovation in an organization, employees must be empowered enough to consider themselves the drivers of change. The individual innovators must be recognized and rewarded as per their contributions.
  • Use both bottom up and top down approaches. The key to improving one’s innovation management skills is the ability to manage innovation at any time and any place it happens. This includes capturing ideas from all possible sources to create a pool, then choosing, refining, and putting into practice the best of them. Therefore, along with the use of the top-down approach and gathering ideas through brainstorming sessions, the use of bottom up approach to capture the spontaneous and unsolicited ideas from the lower level employees is equally significant.
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