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Utilization can mean market introduction for a new product, application of new internal technological or business processes, the start up of a new business unit or licensing out. It is a wide field. So I will give a few examples only.

The utilization of incremental improvements starts directly in the production or in the business process. However, the process and the produced products must be well observed and tested. New technological processes are often developed with simultaneous engineering, tested at pilot plants, and then scaled up. I recommend starting the utilization with achieving safety and quality goals. Cost comes later. I saw it happen that starting with reducing cost in an exaggerated manner prevented the production of the specified quality, what had the unpleasant consequence of increasing cost for scrap and reworking immensely. When safety and quality requirements are achieved and visualized as a basic standard, continuous improvements can reduce cost and increase efficiency steadily.

B2B-business utilization of improved or new products starts with providing samples to customers for their own testing. The scale of testing depends on the product. Shorter and less testing is needed e.g. for a candle holder than for a high safety part in a vehicle. Field tests in automotive industry can extend to more than one year. Qualification in aircraft industry can take even longer. I recommend beginning with small series after the prototype testing. Sometimes unexpected properties cannot be revealed on the prototype.

If your innovation result is a breakthrough or if the target group is a new one, you must decide if you include it into an existing business unit or if you implement a separate one. The risk of the new business needs to be estimated. If it can disturb your core business you might prefer to realize it even in a new company. Instead of creating new business units or new companies you can license your breakthrough innovation out, if it is away from your core business. Licensing out innovative results is one model of open business. Open business developed as a consequence of open innovation. Henry Chesbrough teaches in his book "Open Business Models" how companies can manage intellectual property differently and can overcome common barriers of entrenched ways of thinking. The book ends with a chapter "Getting from Here to There", what means getting to open business models.

If you use gates in your innovation process you will arrive at the final gate, where you review your innovative results in the context of your short-term and long-term goals. Did you solve internal constraints, gain new knowledge, and create more value for your target group? Did you speed up processes and last not least make money?

Now it is your turn to decide about the specific opportunities in your individual innovation process to speed it up and to gain more flexibility than your competitors.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author only and do not represent the views of the Techman/Kanata or of any of its directors, officers or employees. The author, Angelika Kold-Telieps, can be reached at kolb-telieps@k-t-innovation.de