Platform based innovation : the case of Bosch India

Abstract

A multitude of factors determine the increase in demand for large varieties of any particular product. This rise in demand is forcing firms to indulge in mass customization of their products. Platform based innovation that facilitates the production of a large variety of products from the same base or family is an offshoot of the product family approach. While a plethora of frameworks exist in extant research for analyzing and implementing best innovation practices, most of them fail to take into account environmental regulations enforced by the governments of the land for planning and executing production plans. We develop a new framework Strategic Platform Innovation Star (SPINS) to analyze and plan the implementation of platform development under environmental regulatory constraints among other factors. We validate the framework through a case study on Bosch India that developed a successful product platform to meet customer demands under regulatory considerations. We analyze the innovation effort at Bosch India using the various components of the proposed framework. The proposed framework extends the literature on product innovation by allowing the analysis of contextual factors and studying its impact on product platform development at firms. The case study on Bosch India shows that a product platform provides a much needed cushion against regulatory challenges and the presence of a strong innovation culture and collaborative development efforts help in quickly responding to the dynamic competitive landscape and launching new products.