Innovation strategies and product innovation models intended for providing a competitive advantage in enterprises: A research in İstanbul footwear industries

Since 1980s, in the face of concentrating global competition, enterprises with a sustainable competitive advantage can resume their lives. Enterprises could head off competitors by applying cost leadership, differentiation and focus strategies. One of the most important tools is innovation as a proses which makes an added value. In this study, the effect of innovation on obtaining competitive advantage has been tried to presented. The goal of the study is to examine the validation of the basic hypothesis, innovation has a positive effect on competitive advantage in Istanbul Footwear Industry. Innovation is a contributed work by improving relatively cheaper, and/or different products, processes and methods, which has been aimed by enterprises to fit the variable conditions . In general it has been studied on four innovation types: Product innovation, process innovation, marketing innovation and organizational innovation. Beside the other factors, either management's approach or appropriate organizational climate effect the performance of innovation activities. There are various applicable innovation strategies for innovative enterprises: Offensive strategy is to capture the leadership of technology and market. Defensive strategy is to follow compaines with offensive strategy. Imitator strategy is to access the cost advantage by scale economies, and/or the efficiency on production and distribution, changing the design to decrease the cost and cost control. Dependent strategy is to live as a subcontractor of a strong company. Traditional strategy is to reflect company's advanced craft skills and specific features of local crafts to their products. Opportunist strategy makes enterprises met demands of customers' unfulfilled desires and needs. Enterprises determine the innovation strategies fit the competitive strategies according to environmental factors, (state of the market position of competitors, government incentives, etc.) their ability and resources. It is possible with product innovation efforts to meet technological developments and customers' variable needs before their competitors. Within that kind of activities, there are several decision models try to give answers to the questions like where, when and with how much budget needed for innovation: Cooper and Edgett model, contextual model, O'Connor and Demartion models. The process models on how to do the work of innovative products are conceptual model, strategic product innovation process model, state- gate model, alpha / beta delivery model and funnel model. According to the main model of the research, enterprises' product, process, marketing and organizational inovation strategies and inovative product process models effect obtaining competitive advantage. In terms of the main research model, five hypoteses have been stated. Corresponding hypotheses have been tested in the research field, Istanbul Footwear Industry. İstanbul is the most developed city in Turkey on the Footwear Sector. Exporter Footwear manufacturers in Istanbul have been surveyed with a face to face questionnaire. 110 exporter enterprises have been surveyed selected from population consisting of 150 enterprises. According to the findings of the study, most of the footwear manufacturers are SMEs. These enterprises have been following differentiation strategy at most and focus strategy at least as competitive strategies. There are significant relationships between the cost leadership strategy and number of employees; differentiation strategy and legal structure; focus strategy and existence of subcontracting and amount of subcontracting products. 85.5% of enterprises have R&D department. A relationship between existence of R&D department and production technology has been observed. Enterprises are not generally tended to innovation cooperations. There is a significant relationship between the existence of innovation cooperations and production technologies. Footwear manufacturers are following mixed innovation strategies. When each strategy has been seperately handled, the offensive strategy has been the most applied and imitator/dependent strategy has been the least applied strategies as product, process and marketing strategies. The most applied organizational innovation strategy is imitator/dependent strategy and the least applied is traditional/opportunist strategy. In general enterprises have been use process models together during their production innovations. While the state- gate model has been the most preferred model, the conceptual model has been the least preferred model. Enterprises are tended to innovative activities. 85.5% of them have been claimed that they were making innovation. Enterprises have done the process innovation first, and then marketing, product and organizational innovation, respectively. Most of the enterprises declared that there are positive effects of their innovations on to gain competitive advantage. The first three fields have high and medium benefits because of the innovation, improvement of production quality, development of job health and security, and the increase of supply capacity. The main hypothesis is of the research is; H1 = There is a positive effect of inovation strategies and inovative product process models- applied by manufacturer/ exporter enterprises in Istanbul- on the competitive advantage. New hypotheses are stated from the main hypothesis. Hypotheses were tested by the Multiple Regression Analysis. With H11, it has been searched whether there is a positive effect of applied inovation strategies on the competitive advantage or not. H11 has been tested by stating sub- hypotheses in the context of product, process, marketing and organizational inovation strategies according to inovation types. On H 11a, it has been examined whether there is a positive effect of product inovation strategies on the competitive advantage. H11a was accepted because of the result of the Multiple Regression Analysis. According to the coefficients table, just traditional product inovation strategy provides the competitive advantage. On H11b, it has been examined whether there is a positive effect of process inovation strategies on the competitive advantage. H11b was accepted because of the Multiple Regression Analysis' result. According to the coefficients table offensive and opportunist process inovation strategies provide competitive advantage. On H11c, it has been searched whether there is a positive effect of applied marketing inovation strategies on the competitive advantage. H11c was accepted because of the Multiple Regression Analysis' result. According to the coefficients table, offensive and defensive marketing inovation strategies provide the competitive advantage. On H11d, it has been searched whether there is a positive effect of applied organizational inovation strategies on the competitive advantage. H11d was accepted according to the Multiple Regression Analysis' result. According to the coefficients table just defensive organizational inovation strategy provide the competitive advantage. On the second hypothesis (H12) of the research, it was searched whether there is a positive effect of applied inovative product process models on the competitive advantage. Hypothesis has been rejected because of the Multiple Regression Analysis' result. In other words, applied inovative product process models don't effect the competitive advantage. By evaluating the research findings, a two-step model based on the footwear manufacturers due to their product innovation structure and combinations of their structural properties has been proposed. The proposed model for small sized enterprises is the significantly improved inovative product model and big sized enterprises is the original innovative model. Keywords: Innovation, innovation strategies, product innovation models, İstanbul Footwear Industry, product innovation in footwear producing enterprises.