Individual Industry Innovation Report

Question: Discuss about the Individual Industry Innovation Report. Answer: Introduction The innovation is mandatory for the survival of anything on the face of the world and hence is true for the businesses too. In the present competitive world, the innovation has become inevitable for the organizations around the world. Every day new companies are formed which are paying more stress on the online presence and reaching the consumers with innovative products in an innovative way, thus making innovation extremely necessary for the organization around the world (Ngo and O'Cass 2013). So this report aims to discuss the importance of the innovation, and do an innovation audit on Renewable Energy Corporation for understanding the success of the organization. Importance of environment in innovation The Merriam-Webster defines environment as, the circumstances, objects, or conditions by which one is surrounded.' So in the context of an organization the environment is everything outside the business house such as the market, external stakeholders, consumer, etc. thus it can be easily concluded that most of the factors that are of major concern for the firm are part of the environment, which indicates the importance of the environment for the firm (McKenna and Chauncey 2014). The various environmental factors that are of major concern for the firm are: inflation, recession, depression, exchange rates, market size, demand, suppliers, competitors, and there are many. So innovation keeps the company up to date with the environment can adapt itself for the creation of better services for their consumers (Hung and Chou 2013). Government policies and initiatives for innovation The laws of the land or the government policies are a major factor that decides the course of action of the company. Thus it can be observed that some countries are more competitive and innovative compared to others and help the firm for the creation of a better environment for growth and innovation (Dolfsma and Seo 2013). The government can help in innovation by buying the innovations that help in free competition, reducing the risks of the innovation by various funding mechanism, collaboration with the leading experts in the industry, and regulations and standards that decide the direction and barriers of the research (Borras and Edquist 2013). The above mentioned are the basic guidelines and could be broadened based on the specific requirements. Importance of Research in Innovation The innovation of any organization is mostly based on the fact, how optimized the process is monitored, managed and how the firm understands the requirement of the consumers. For this propose, the company should keep on reinventing itself in all the aspect. The reinvention and the invention of new techniques for the purpose of maintaining advantages over the competitors are done with constant research (Stahl 2013). So the research is an integral part of innovation and the organizations around the world should have am RD department to ensure they are well aware of the advancements and are not left behind by the latest upgrades in their field. The research helps in understanding the present lacunas of the system and also helps in producing newer products that have not been thought by the competitors. The new products help in the creation of the niche market that is totally unexplored and helps in grabbing more share in the market and creates a good name of the organization in the market. The research should not be restricted to the technological aspects of the organization (Von Schomberg 2013). The firm should also develop novel ways of marketing and data analysis which help in better reach to the consumers, with the latest inventions in the information technology the impact of the technology should be properly valued and incorporated which helps in better and faster data management. Renewable Energy Corporation The REC (Renewable Energy Corporation) is one of the leading companies in solar power equipment fabrication. REC started with the establishment of Fornybar Energi AS which suffered various setbacks due to the market conditions and negative cash flow. In 2007 the company decided to start afresh and shifted its base to Singapore. In the following years, the company went through a crisis with the falling income and the increasing debts, which was the result of the financial crisis. Following the splitting up of the company into two, after which the company has started growing steadily (REC Group 2016). Hence the company has experienced a lot in its short interval of inception which has resulted in its deep learning. Innovation audit The major concern of the company is manufacture silicon wafer and solar panels and constructs solar panels from them. So it can be seen that the basic aim of the company is innovative, as the firm aims to reduce the dependence of the world on the conventional energy sources, thus giving it an edge over the other companies (REC Group 2016). The company ran into trouble when it started to move to various locations. The initial setup of the company was in Sweden and was trouble free when the company moved to Norway the company started facing troubles (Dolfsma and Seo 2013). From the Global Innovation index ranking, it can be seen that Sweden is ranked high among the peers and is the reason of the initial success but the environment of Norway is not as conducive as of the Sweden resulting in the decline of the company. Then the troubles kept on coming but after the split the company moved two places, USA and Singapore who are again ranked very high on the index, thus indicating the importance of the law of the land and government regulations on the health of organization (Global Innovation Index 2016). The previous paragraph discusses the impact of the law of the land and the importance of the government regulation upon the health of the company. In this section, the impact of the larger environment will be presented that will help in understanding the course of action of the company (Wang et al. 2016). The conducive environment of the countries helped the company to strive instead of the soaring debt of the company due to the financial crisis which was the result of the delays in the opening of new production facilities. Although the demand was high, the failure to meet the demand reduced its valuation thus creating a situation of crisis (Forbes.com 2016). This incident shows the impact of the various environmental factors on the company. The company throughout its journey has manufactured around 20 million solar panels till 2015. The journey had been from hand washing wafers to the latest sustainable production facility, which aims for the production of the cleaner energy for the future. So the company has traveled long from pioneer to a world leader. The company has implemented various innovation techniques like the integration of fully automated system for production of the wafers in 2010 (REC Group 2016). Recently in much of this year the company has invested around 250 USD for the research and development (HWEE-HWEE 2016). Such investment in the area of research and development is sure to bring accolades to the company in the long run thus making the organization truly world class. Future prospects The present aim of the organization is only related to the production of the solar panels for the production of the green electrical energy. The company can also show interest in the production of alternate energy harvesting technology like solar concentrators that concentrated the solar radiation for heating the fluid for running the turbines based on the thermal power plants. The research indicates that the solar concentrators are more efficient compared to the present solar panels (Leutz and Suzuki 2012). The company can also produce panels with a better efficiency which will be a great leap for the humanity. The company could also concentrate towards the developing nations that will help in grabbing a greater share of the market and will help both the countries and the company. The company should also move for the solar panel installation. With the expertise in hand with the company and the in-house resources, the organization is bound to excel in the field (Thomas 2016). As stated in the previous paragraph the other renewable sources like the wind too should be given the due importance that will help in the expansion of the business and will help in diversification of the business which is necessary for every organization (Griffin et al. 2013). Conclusion The report here has successfully presented the various factors that are responsible for the innovation in a company. The various factors that promote the innovation of the organizations were identified for the system. The identified factors were the environment of the organization, the law of the land and the governmental regulations of the land, and the research that are being carried out in the organization. Then in the subsequent section, the company background was presented which helped in understanding the course of action of the company. 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