Global Innovation Management - TUHH Institute for Technology & Innovation Management · part of my Technology Management MBA · study notes for revision.
This module asks a deceptively simple question: how do companies innovate - and how does that change once innovation has to happen across the whole world at once? It starts with the fundamentals of innovation management, then zooms out to globalization, the megatrends reshaping demand, and the very different ways a firm can organise R&D across borders. It ends with frugal innovation - doing more with less, a theme that turns out to matter as much in Germany as in India.
These are study notes for revision: every concept explained plainly, the jargon defined the first time it appears, and the many real examples (GE’s $535 ECG, Tata Nano, Philips vs Matsushita, SAP Labs…) kept because they make the ideas stick.
1 · Foundations of Innovation Management
What innovation really is (invention + exploitation), the types and forms of innovation, the drivers behind it, and how firms set an innovation strategy - the Innovation Pentathlon, the four strategy stances, and Blue Ocean thinking.
2 · Sources of Innovation & the Process
Where good ideas come from - lead users, Jobs-to-be-Done, analogies and open innovation - and how a product travels from idea to launch through the Stage-Gate process, including the “fuzzy front end”.
3 · Globalization & Megatrends
What globalization actually means and what drives it, the de-globalization debate, the rise of emerging economies, and the megatrends (ageing, digital, new powerhouses, sustainability) that reshape what firms must innovate for.
4 · Managing Global Innovation
Why firms spread R&D across the world, the shift from “internationalisation of R&D” to true “globalization of innovation”, science-and-technology clusters, and reverse innovation - products built for emerging markets that succeed in rich ones.
5 · Lead Markets & the Innovation Footprint
Why the country that adopts an innovation first matters more than the one that invents it (lead market theory), the five lead-market advantages, and how to make each R&D site earn its place - substitution, complementarity, discovery.
6 · The Transnational Model
Bartlett & Ghoshal’s answer to the three pressures of globalization - global efficiency, local responsiveness and worldwide learning: the Integration-Responsiveness grid, the four strategy types, subsidiary roles, and the barrier of “administrative heritage”.
7 · Frugal Innovation - Concept & Imperative
“Affordable green excellence”: the three defining criteria of a frugal innovation, why over-engineering is a trap, multidimensional affordability, and why established Western firms ignore the fast-growing “good-enough” segment at their peril (M1-M4).
8 · Frugal Innovation in Practice
A hands-on, six-step frugal innovation process - from analysing relevance and capturing “sticky” customer needs (netnography, Kano, design thinking) to design-to-cost development, hunting cost drivers with an Ishikawa diagram, and building the frugal mindset.