Global brands, such as Apple, Sony or BMW, but also smaller innovation leaders, such as Zotter Chocolate or Anton Paar GmbH, stage new products like stars. Here one will encounter the same word over and over again, namely innovation. Since the development of innovative products, applications and business models have been considered to be THE economic formula for success, experts have been required for such processes not only in technology-oriented branches of industry. Especially in service industries, trade and tourism innovation is becoming more and more a central topic of corporate development. As pioneers, innovation managers prepare the ground for market launch. In the process departments connect, conduct processes and chair a team of experts. They construct bridges between engineers and business economists, between clients and designers, between inventors and decision makers. As thought leaders and mavericks, innovation managers shape the future of the company. Graduates of the Bachelor degree programme are able to design and to coordinate innovation projects inside companies. The Master degree programme deepens and broadens the knowledge and abilities for the application on the management level – for the innovation-oriented focus of the corporate strategy.
The Master degree programme in innovation management is the management training for prospective managers. It is based on the Bachelor degree programme, but it is also directed towards graduates from other fields of study with work experience in technology, economics, and innovation management. These studies deal with the question of how to convert ideas into money and how to bring companies successfully on the course of innovation – up to the strategic reorientation of a whole company. The graduates acquire all the essential abilities in order to be able to plan and to shape the innovation-oriented development of a company. The strategic innovation management can happen on department level as well as on management level of a company. Already existing expertise in planning and implementing of product, service and process innovation will be added by the dimensions of the strategic innovation management and the development of new business segments. Innovation managers on the management level are capable to recognize trends as chances for their company at an early stage, to deduce the correct strategy from it, and to develop new business models. Owing to the ability to think in an interconnected way, they are able to launch development processes across departments and are able to bring the whole company into a line with innovation.
