数字创新企业的成功因素 The Success Factors in Business of Digital Innovation

Executive Summary
 

This report focuses on finding out the key factors that lead to business success, especially in the business of digital innovation. In this information era various organizations are faced with all kinds of problems (Evan & Black, 1967), including digital business, and they must improve themselves through various ways. Many scholars have observed a variety of enterprises, which regard innovation as a very important part, and analyzed the reasons why they can get ahead in the industry. The results reflect that innovation performance accounts for a large proportion in successful outcomes of the enterprise. This report analyzes key factors for innovation success and indicates the importance of innovation for an enterprise.
 

Introduction
 

Today there are many famous enterprises all over the world and they are confronted with a fierce competition. The era that the enterprises improved their competitiveness by reducing the cost of the product has gone. The enterprises pay more and more attention to make them strong by innovation. Just like Henry Ford said, the founder of the first assembly line for building cars, that no innovation, no existence. Reviewing the successful enterprises in the world and they have one thing in common. That is, they all put innovation in a vital place. Innovation can make them keep alive and competitive and many factors can influence innovation success, such as the market, the technology and the staff. The author takes Amit Bhawani, a successful website, as an example to discuss the success factors.
 

2.1 Definition of Innovation 

Innovation is a system that established by combining new production elements and conditions (Johannessen, Olsen & Olaisen, 1997). The system includes many different types like introducing a new product into the original market or improving a product with a new function, developing a new technology to increase the efficiency, and other innovative actions (Johannessen, Olsen & Olaisen, 1997). Someone viewed innovation as a learning process, including interactive elements and relationships made up visual innovative outcomes. Innovation is different from invention, which is the discovery of a new thing; because that innovation can be applied to creating economic value, but the latter one do not always has this function (Grupp, 1998). The principal part of innovation is people who have relevant knowledge and skills and innovation is closely linked with the creativity of people or the staff of firms. Based on it, many entrepreneurs pay much attention to the human resource management and motivate employees to be innovative. In other words, innovation relies on the learning capability of people and the application of exiting knowledge can create new methods and knowledge (Drucker, 1993). The dominant concern will be knowledge management in the future for entrepreneurs (Quinn, 1992).

In conclusion, this report accepts the view that innovation is a process of creating new things, which are valuable, by applying knowledge and technology and it can produce economic value and cannot be useful without staff.
 

2.2 The Key Factors Lead to Business Innovation Success

It is difficult to introduce a new product to the market because that the market is so complex that nobody can predict changes of it. Just as the preference of customers has changed but the firm did not recognize it, so the exiting product cannot satisfy customers any longer and the market will be closed. And if the competitors researched new technologies, the market maybe belongs to them and other firms may have to drop out. Regardless of the various uncertainties, there always are some accessible methods to deal with the problems. Based on that, the manager has to realize the importance of innovation.

 

There are some key factors leading to business innovation success. First of all, an excellent manager is necessary. The manager is the leader of the firm and is responsible for the daily operation of the firm. Regardless of the type of the enterprise, the manager plays a vital role in the management. An excellent manager means a manager is sensitive to the environment and can make right decisions immediately and make efforts to create a good working environment for employees. In this information age, it is difficult to cope with the unpredictable environment for all companies. If the manager can make the proper response when great changes happen, that is, the manager knows how to innovate, the firm will exist longer and get ahead in the industry. A good working environment, which is helpful to innovate, is necessary. After all, the firm depends on employees to innovate to create profits. The manager should understand and take his responsibilities correctly as a leader. As for the digital content industries, the information technology updates at an amazing rate. People who engaged in this industry should have the newest knowledge of information technology. Therefore, a good leader who can help them gain what they need to learn will make the enterprise keep active and innovative. Except a good leader, a group of positive employees also play the same important role. If they can update their knowledge on their own initiative, the competitiveness of the firm will be strengthened. In other words, the manager and employees create the culture of the firm and an innovative culture will provide favorable conditions for innovation.

 

Secondly, there should be a reasonable system to facilitate innovation, such as a reward system. As the assumption in western economics, everyone is self-interest. Employees work for the manager and the manager pay them money. They all want to maximize their own interests and they will try their best to work only when they are motivated well. Therefore, some incentive measures should be taken to guarantee the employees work hard and have a passion to innovate. The manager can choose increasing their salaries or promotion to motivate his staff. Except that, sometimes the employees will need funds to support the research, the manager should give them full support because the research process is innovation process. Many large firms have fixed scientific research funds and the powerful research strength makes them have a large share of the market (Tidd, 2001). There are many other systems can be established to guarantee that the employees have a passion to innovate for a long term.

 

Thirdly, a right attitude towards failure can be an important factor for innovation success. In the process of innovation, the employees cannot gain a satisfactory result smoothly. They will encounter many difficulties and spend much time to solve them. So a negative attitude towards failure will make them miss the success. Both of the manager and the employees should realize that the process of innovation is full of various obstacles. Failure is necessary and inevitable in the process of exploration. So a positive attitude towards failure will support the employees to find out the right way and gain more useful knowledge through repeated failure. The manager should encourage failure and allow the employees to do something wrong. It will be accepted that he does not make mistakes deliberately. Some companies evaluate the performance of the employees through checking the number of mistakes they have made when they are working. However, it does not mean the employees can work carelessly. A right attitude towards failure can make the employees innovate bravely and make various attempts to increase the rate of success. For instance, the process of innovation of the famous 3M Company is not smooth in the initial stages. The founders did not sell what they planned but another product, which has no economic value. That is, the company invested much without expected profits. However, the 3M Company did not stop producing something new. They produced waterproof sandpaper and masking tape successfully and other products. All of the products have proved the powerful innovation ability of the 3M Company. Therefore, failure is necessary for business innovation, as well as for innovation in the digital content industries.

Discussion 

3.1 Overview of Amit Bhawani

Amit Bhawani is a very young but successful website, which was established by Amit Bhawani Patel in April, 2007. The contents of the website include a variety of topics, such as technology, health, pictures and other helpful tutorials, especially news about the latest information technology. Before starting this blog, Amit Bhawani Patel has written on multiple blogs and he did not regard it as a job. Then what he wrote on those blogs did not have great influence. After that, he started to be serious to establish this website and tried his best to make it be a successful blog. He wrote information about SEO on the blog. Before coming into contact with the web, he did not have relevant programming knowledge except HTML. For reaching his goal to make an excellent website, he started to study relevant knowledge in this field hard and his interest in building a website on his own was increased. Then this hope motivated him to make enough money to support the realization of the plan. Now the website is popular in India and there are thousands of visitors per month. And the website have created great profits for its owner.

3.2 Innovation Key Factors of Amit Bhawani

Despite that the website is very young, it has made excellent performance. The manager has gained great profits from it. There are many reasons contributed to the success and one of them is innovation. There are also many key factors have influence on its innovation.

One of the factors is that the founder has a great passion for exploring new things. He is a man of great thirst for knowledge and his courage to explore in an unfamiliar filed determined his success. As a freshman, he learnt the relevant knowledge to make himself be a webmaster. He always updates his technology according to the tendency to change in the digital business to make his website be the top of the similar websites. So people will pay more attention to it. Except that, he knows what people would like to know. There are many helpful tips to help people to solve problems, which always annoy them, such as how to setup proxy website or like that. He shared his experience to others and other people will solve the similar problems conveniently. In a word, he knows what he wants to do and what customers need and has a great passion for exploring. Another factor is the attitude towards failure of the team. They have encountered many difficulties in building this website and even have made many mistakes. But they just viewed failure as the power of innovation. Learning the latest technology is the source of innovation. So is failure. They write their failure on the blog to help people who visit it to avoid the same mistake. They have made great fortune from this blog and helped people who have the same interest in the information technology.

Conclusion  

Innovation is playing a vital role in the management of enterprises, regardless of the type of them. However, innovation does not mean that it can produce valuable things every time. There are many factors having influence on innovation and the focus is people who participate in business activities. The key factors for innovation success concentrate on personnel management. The abilities of the manager will have great effect on the culture of the firm and determine the outcomes of innovation. In many times a decision of the manager will lead to great changes in the firm. A reasonable system will help the leader to manage his team and motivate them to create effectively. The attitude towards failure maybe a key factor for innovation success and even so great entrepreneurs may encounter failure in the way to success. Sometimes it will arouse new ideas from repeated failure. Except these three factors, there may be any other factors for innovation success, but they should be considered firstly when the firm takes action to innovate. As for the digital business, innovation is the soul of the companies and the key factors are suitable for them as well.

References 

Evan, WM & Black, G 1967, ‘Innovation in Business Organizations: Some Factors Associated with Success or Failure of Staff Proposals’, The Journal of Business, vol.40, no.4, pp.519-530.

Grupp,H 1998, Foundations of the Economics of Innovation: Theory, Measurement and Practice, Edward Elgar Publishing limited.

Johannessen, JA, Olsen, B & Olaisen, J 1999, ‘Aspects of innovation theory based on knowledge-management’, International Journal of Information Management, vol.19, pp.121-139.

Patel, AB 2009, About Amit Bhawani Patel, Amit Bhawani Patel, retrieved 23 March 2012

Singh, D 2011, Online Sucess Story of Amit Bhawani(www.dxlwwang.com/aozhou/ amitbhwani.com), Deepak Singh, retrieved 23 March 2012, .

Tidd, J 2001, ‘Innovation management in context: environment, organization and performance’, International Journal of Management Reviews, vol.3, no.3, pp.169-183.