Although Drucker is not known in direct relevance to innovation, in fact he is known best by others as the ‘founding father of the study of management’ (peterfdrucker.com). However, despite this he has made some significant contributions to the ways we can view the concept of innovation. One way that he has done this is through his ‘Innovation Award’ which is given each year to a non profit innovative company.
Drucker’s other contributions to innovation are mainly shown within his book ‘Innovation and Entrepreneurship’, which I have found hugely helpful in terms of understanding what the process of innovation actually is.
Drucker highlights some key principals of innovation, stating firstly, that all innovation ‘begins with the analysis of opportunities’ (p122, 1985). This suggests that having a firm idea of what is wanted to be achieved is crucial, before innovation even begins.
He goes on to explain that innovation is both ‘conceptual and perceptual’ and that successful innovators ‘look at figures and look at people’ (p124, 1985). These quotes suggest that in order for the innovation to be successful, significant research has to be undertaken in the form of ‘look, ask, listen’ in order to work out ‘analytically what the innovation has to be in order to satisfy an opportunity’ (p124, 1985). An example of this is the innovation of the vacuum cleaners by Dyson. Notably the ‘Dyson DC24 Animal’.
This has taken the usual form of a vacuum cleaner only it has encompassed a ball into the structure allowing a wider range of movement, resulting in easier vacuuming. Research for this innovation must have consisted of Drucker’s ‘look, ask, listen’ concept in order to understand the needs, expectations and values of the customers. Only then can innovation begin.
Drucker’s third principal states that in order for an innovation to be effective ‘it has to be simple and focused’ (p124,1985). This deems true as if an innovation is extremely complicated and then goes wrong, it would be far more difficult to fix than if the innovation was simple. This implies that an innovation should be focused on satisfying one simple need instead of trying to do it all.
Lastly Drucker concludes that effective innovations ‘start small’ (p124,1985), suggesting that ‘industry changing’ ideas rarely work. This could be the case due to the fact that starting small allows for adjustments to be made slowly and effectively and the innovation matures. If an innovation was too big there would most likely be too many adjustments to handle properly, resulting in the innovation failing.
After reading through these parts of Drucker’s book, I now feel like I have a good understanding of what innovation is; i.e. a change or modification, or even a completely new concept or idea, that will somehow benefit the needs of the consumer. Also within the principals of Innovation that Drucker highlights there is a clear outline of a process; i.e. finding and opportunity, researching the opportunity and whether or not it would be successful, and then creating the innovation simply and on a small scale in order to be able to easily fix problems or adjust.
References
Drucker, P F. (1985). Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Oxford
