Innovation usually concerns products, services and processes but innovation management does not just encourage ‘innovation’ as in technical or research and development. It also gauges the impact and sustainability of innovation, managing both the demand and supply variables over medium to long-term time frames. 

Innovation management identifies opportunities and facilitates their implementation.  As Tidd, Bessant and Pavitt state, it involves ‘developing both the ability to scan for signals about change and a readiness to move into new areas – and let go of old ones. ‘

They also conclude ‘Above all it suggests that the primary task is one of managing knowledge – developing and building distinctive competence in particular fields, adapting and absorbing new and different knowledge sets when it becomes necessary and moving out of particular knowledge areas when they become redundant.’

Joe Tidd, John Bessant and Keith Pavitt, (1997, 2001) Managing Innovation, Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change, John Wiley and Sons Ltd., p.12