5 Nov 2008

Bringing technological innovation and commercial sense together

The mobile telecomm industry has evolved from few simple be-spoke systems to highly complicated and convoluted solutions that require an army of experts to anlayse and understand.

With the myriad of technologies available, there are many nice innovative ideas out there. Technologically innovative ideas can be exciting and have a hypnotic effect on all of us technologist. However, very few ideas make commercial sense.

For an innovative product/system/solution to make a commercial sense first and foremost it has to fullfil a need. The need could be purely financial such as generating more revenue, or strategic such as winning market share...etc. It has also to offer added value compared to any other -less innovative- products. It has also to be cost effective.

There is great value in futuristic thinking and spending money and effort on R&D to develop ideas and expand the horizons, but a pre-mature talk about market readiness and wrapping everything up in a mediocre (at best) business propostition misses the whole argument about a need-driven-innovation.

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