indicates that there is a desperate need for help for innovators.
amongst the innovators who had successfully commercialised and those who had either become stagnant in the process or had failed.
The steps from the combined innovation and commercialisation process were grouped into six different phases. These phases are: 1. Idea generation (steps 1 – 1) 2. Legally protect the innovation (steps 18 – 19) 3. Prototype development (step 25 – 29) 4. Market research (step 30 – 36) 5. Funding (step 20 – 24) 6. Commercialise (step 37 – 39) Further analysis of the results is available in the full paper.
Conclusion The results of the analysis show that overall, only 30% of the respondents indicated that they knew exactly what the steps of the innovation and commercialisation process entail. This is a very low percentage. Knowledge of the process is vital to innovators if they wish to be successful in putting a new product on the market.
The low success rate of innovation and commercialisation indicates that there is a desperate need for help for innovators. Recommendations that are of critical importance are the following: It is recommended that existing government institutions derive invention-related criteria
by which to judge prospective inventions, rather than focus on the demographics of the innovator.
It is further recommended that government institutions must be responsible for kill/go decisions throughout the commercialisation process. This implies that these institutions need to evaluate the invention continuously. Inventions of which the potential has faded must be discarded, regardless of the phase of commercialisation in which the invention is.
The last recommendation is that a new institution be put in place to identify insufficient potential very early in the commercialisation process to enable innovators to improve on the existing concept or abandon the concept completely and generate a new invention with sufficient potential.
About the author: Ms Karen Booysen has been a lecturer at UFS since 2003, teaching Contemporary Management to first- year students and Entrepreneuship to second-year students. At the start of 2011 Booysen obtained her MCom (Cum laude) with the title “From innovation to commercialisation - A South African perspective.”
January 2012 | Management Today 31
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114