Entrepreneur's Handbook
INTRODUCTION
Today, one of the main driving forces for sustainable growth of economies and increasing social welfare is innovation. Innovation, as a concept that has social, national and global benefits beyond being just economic, should be considered with a wider perspective. Innovation, which has an important role in the national and global economy, is also considered as the key concept of achieving productivity, profitability and performance increase for the actors in economic systems. From this point of view, it can be said that innovation, along with its contribution to economic development, has brought dynamism to the development of social welfare and living standards of individuals.
Innovation is a knowledge-based process. However, it is also important to produce, share and transform this information into new technologies, products / services and processes. Due to the fact that today's information and information technologies are very advanced, it will be more appropriate for both businesses and countries to adopt an open innovation approach and system for the production and transmission of information that constitutes the basic dynamic of innovation. In addition, it would not be the right approach to consider innovation areas only as technology, product, service and process. Because it is seen that a wide range of innovations are realized, from social projects to education, from new raw material sources to markets and organizational structures.
Innovation is not limited to the creation of new ideas, knowledge, inventions and technologies. In fact, it is not enough to create knowledge, invention and technology to talk about innovation. Such an invention can only be regarded as innovation when it is commercialized to provide social and economic benefit. Innovation will be valuable and important only to the extent that the return of the investments made and the performance of the work to be done can be increased. At this point, an innovation that produces economic and social value is mentioned. Different applications or inventions that can achieve this enable an effective commercialization process by accepting them as innovations.
The commercialization of an innovation requires the development of effective marketing strategies and the establishment of a business structure that will ensure the efficient implementation of these strategies, and the establishment of a network that will ensure the continuous reveal of innovation in order to ensure the continuity of innovations. First of all, the entrepreneur needs to have a business culture that is suitable for innovation and then to create a business or organizational culture that is suitable for this culture. Otherwise, innovations will be experienced as an unachievable business, let alone managing and commercializing innovation, let alone being far from gaining continuity.
It is a common thought that innovation is seen as risky especially for small and medium-sized businesses. The underlying idea is that the risks involved in sustaining and commercializing innovation can be such that the business is in a dangerous situation. At this point, businesses can reduce their risks by taking measures to increase their chances of success. With the developments in communication and information technologies, the fact that the innovation can be similar and imitated by others in a short time can create a situation against the innovative enterprise. To prevent this, regulations for the protection of intellectual property and technical measures to reduce the imitability of innovation should always be considered. Only by following such a strategy can innovations be carried out in a sustainable manner.
In this section, the management of innovations will be discussed in the context of processes, elements and resources. After the introduction, which emphasizes the importance of innovation for the entrepreneur, country, economy and individual, the innovation and management process in enterprises will be discussed. At this point, the concept of innovation and its types will be summarized. Thus, information on under what conditions and how the innovation infrastructure should be established will be shared. The determinants of innovation and the information on how to develop an innovative entrepreneurial culture will be examined in the next heading, and the necessary competencies for the permanence of the innovation in the business will be revealed. Then, by explaining what the sources and strategies of innovation are, a clearer picture for entrepreneurs will be presented. Finally, the section will be completed by giving information about the transfer of innovation.