Innovation at apple Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Innovation at apple - Coursework Example Evidences suggest that many companies have achieved a strong global presence within a short period of time over the last two decades on the strength of their technology and innovation management. The explosive growth of Apple Inc over the last decade is a good example of how a company can create an insanely loyal customer base and dominate the market. This paper will discuss the current significance of innovation and technology management using normative literature and critically analyse the case study to identify contemporary issues in international technology management and hence to justify the arguments. Innovation and technology management Today, companies give specific focus to innovation and technology in order to enhance fast business growth and to master the intense competitive practices brought about by the globalisation forces. In developed countries, innovation is considered as a key tool to address the challenges raised by the low cost producers from emerging economies. A number of the economic reforms introduced over the last few decades have led to the development of new economic powerhouses like India and China, which maintain strong scientific capabilities. In addition, the emergence of globalisation eliminated cross border trade barriers and enhanced the cross border movement of capital, labour, cultures, and ideas. Even though globalisation promotes international trade, products manufactured internationally need to comply with particular needs of targeted markets. Hence, when a multinational corporation markets its products in technologically developed countries like US, UK, or China, it must be able to meet higher level expectation of consumers. Therefore, many of the today’s organisations have established special departments to foster innovation and technological advancements. Innovation management is a recently developed branch of management that particularly deals with execution of various processes in innovation. Generally innovati on can be of two types; product and organisational innovation. Innovation management addresses a set of tools that assist business managers to work together with a common understanding of different objectives and processes. Management experts claim that innovation management greatly benefits an organisation to timely and effectively respond to external or internal growth opportunities and to use its resources to develop new ideas, products, or processes (Rossini 1978, p.45). It must be noted that the scope of innovation management is not limited to research and development activities. In contrast, it encourages frontline workers to top executives to contribute their creativity to the firms’ growth, especially in the areas of manufacturing and marketing. By practicing effective innovation management tools, management can foster employee creativity and gather combined employee efforts towards the sustainable development of the firm (Clark 1980, pp.23-24). Technology management is another set of management disciplines that defines a clear way for organisations to deal with their technological landscape successfully and hence to obtain a competitive edge over their market rivals. The common concepts employed in the technology management are ‘technology strategy, technology forecasting, technology roadmapping, technology project portfolio, and technology portfolio’