Innovators face problems and challenges mainly in the areas of financial assistance and marketing of their innovation. In other words, it involves:

• Securing the right kind of finance is key to delivering innovation. Prevailing asymmetry between inventors and investors is required to be bridged. Financing systems for backing up early-stage innovations with risk capital are required. Also, provisions for exiting from non-profitable innovations also need to be made.
• Innovations created at the expense of considerable investment of resources, demand a matching Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime.
• The legal framework for protecting IPR is in place but the infrastructure for capturing and protecting IPR is still evolving in India.
• New approaches, programmes and policies are essential for unleashing India’s innovation potential.
• Competitiveness innovation cluster has emerged as a successful global concept, in which academia, research and industry partner under viable and equitable pattern, are the way forward.

Innovations that fail are often potentially good ideas but have been rejected or postponed due to budgetary constraints, lack of skills or poor fit with current goals. Failures should be identified and screened out as early in the process as possible. Early screening avoids unsuitable ideas devouring scarce resources that are needed to progress more beneficial ones. While learning is important, high failure rates throughout the innovation process are wasteful.

The causes of failure have been widely researched and can vary considerably. Some causes will be external and others will be internal. Internal causes of failure relate to those associated with the innovation process itself. Common causes of failure within the innovation process in most organisations can be divided into five types:

• Poor goal definition
• Poor alignment of actions to goals
• Poor participation in teams
• Poor monitoring of results
• Poor communication and access to information

Gaining full benefits of innovation requires an effective and efficient framework across a wide range of policy areas, calling for an integrated approach and cooperation between business, governments and society.