Comparison of the business planning problems at different innovation stages of the Utterback and Abernathy’s model

Master in e-Business and ICT strategic management September 20, 2003 Giancarlo Vercellino Page 4 of 49 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Purpose of the dissertation The main challenge of the present dissertation is to show the existence of a strong link between the specific problem solving activity involved in the business planning process and the development stage of the innovation process inside the enterprise. The considerations that will be detailed along the dissertation come from a real experience of business plan development performed at the Anderson Business School together with the collaboration of the High Institute Mario Boella. The framework of analysis is the dynamic model of innovation proposed by Utterback and Abernathy, which suits in a quite seamless way to the specific experience noticed so far along the elaboration of the business plan of two different Italian companies at different development stages. The comparison of different excerpts from the plan first drafts helps to discuss the similarities and the differences in the problem solving activities, the different research issues and team challenges. All the results of the comparative analysis are collected in table form in the conclusion section.