Report which critically assesses the reasons for the success or failure of an innovation - Essay Example

The process of innovation starts when the product is first conceived and moves towards its realisation. This involves a number of factors that are controllable and certain others that are not controllable. Almost all of the controllable factors are internal to the company. These include project management and implementation from ground zero to creating the product with specific advantages. The controllable factors also include the internal knowledge on the product and the product market, the amount of efforts that the company spends in pre-development activities.

There are also a number of uncontrollable factors which are primarily external to the company. These include the changes that come about in the market potential for the product, the market itself and the competitor response to the product development. There are also other factors like the capital requirements and the legal factors which could turn out to be very important when the product hits the market. The aim of this paper is to study a product that was launched in the company. This would analyse the various factors that influenced the launch of this product, both controllable and not controllable.

This study would also look at the reasons why the product behaved the way it did in the market and what could have been done in order to rectify these conditions. The final deductions are put down under the conclusion while the rest of the paper carries the initial study and analysis.ProductThe product identified for this purpose is the launch of the Azotobactor bacterial based bio fertilizer by the company that is being considered. The company launched the product in 1998 in the markets of Europe and Latin America after a pro-longed development effort and observation of how agriculture is practiced in those countries.

The company has been selling fertilizers for about 25 years prior to that. As an effort towards test marketing the company did sell some of the products in Bio fertilizer range that they have been selling in UK for six months before going for a full fledged launch of these fertilisers. The study is taken up to cover the entire project till the launch was formally completed in 2004 and the product moved into the maintenance mode.Controllable FactorsThe developments of any of the products have both controllable and not controllable factors influencing them.

In order to analyse the effect of these factors, the history behind the product launch has to be taken note of. This product was launched by a chemical fertiliser company as a new entrant into the bio fertiliser market or the organic fertiliser market. With the increasing tendency of making the fields more and more chemical, with both chemical fertilisers and pesticides, the bio fertilisers were looked at as the future fertilisers. It was expected that these would stand the test of time and would be the best regenerative alternate for chemical fertilisers.

With this in mind the company embarked on the mission to launch the bio fertilisers in Europe and in the Latin American markets. They were not the first to bring it, though, the rest of the industry that tried did not meet with specific success either. There was also an imminent need that the company also gets into this band wagon.There were a number of products which were being called the bio fertiliser