Invention vs Innovation
Innovation and invention are two concepts that mix into each other in the mind of the business people when they start discussing implementing innovation into the organization. We can develop many inventions in the labs and research centers, but bringing solutions that improve the experience or benefit customers is the invention that we need to look for to embed in our solutions.
The invention is the creation of a product, technology, or introduction of a process not previously known to exist. Inventions are the driving force of technological development which is crucial for a civilization’s development. For example, technology has increased the productivity of manufactories many times, with the use of steam engines. It rescued farmers from hard work because it provided them with tractors and harvesters. It made traveling easier and faster, thanks to railways, cars, and airplanes.
However, not every invention contributes to technological development, even some of the brightest ones. History gives examples of many inventors who created new technological solutions which surpassed everything that contemporary people knew about, and yet their inventions were either forgotten or simply did not find a wider resonance in the society of their time. Four Great Inventions (print, the compass, paper, and gunpowder), which in China are a classic symbol of the scientific and technological power of the country, found wider, more common, and more revolutionary applications later in Europe, not in the Middle Kingdom itself.
Not every invention changes the world, and certainly, not everyone does it when it is invented or through the actions of the inventor himself. In order for the invention to become a breakthrough and to change the lives of the masses, it must become an innovation.
Though often used as synonyms for one another, invention and innovation are technically different. Innovation is improving on or making a significant contribution to an existing product, process, or service. Innovation ties everything together in business. Innovation is the successful exploitation of new ideas. Therefore “invention” and “innovation” are related but not identical. Innovation involves turning an invention into a commercial success and encouraging its widespread use; it flows from the invention. As in the example given before, the Newcomen’s steam engine would be forgotten and would only exist as a record in a dusty work of some historian if in 1712 the Staffordshire mine did not run the first of these machines to accelerate and facilitate coal mining which proved in practice the efficiency of the machine in the mining industry.
Innovation is complex, as it is in most cases a combination of invention, along with use, behavior, and business models. Finding a single person with technical skills to invent, an understanding of user behavior and consumption, and the business background to understand the economics and dependencies of getting the innovation to market sustainably and profitably is very rare, back to the example of China. It might seem that China had everything a country needed for a breakthrough: inventions, population, large surface area, lots of natural resources. However, something else is required for an invention to become an innovation and change people’s lives — well-functioning market institutions and people who can make use of them: the entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs have the capability of anticipating what, when, and whys that will be needed for as many people as possible, then providing them with the goods and services in the best and cheapest way possible.
Without the entrepreneurial skills, business intuition, and market sense, some of the successful companies you know might not be in their current spot. They would stay as an exciting but forgotten invention. Innovation cannot happen without an invention, and neither invention is helpful in business if not properly executed.