Products & Services The Council on Competitiveness uses the following definition: Innovation the transformation of knowledge into new products, processes, and services involves more than just science and technology. It involves discerning and meeting the needs of customers. This is consistent with the seminal work of Everett M. Rogers on the diffusion of innovations where he notes that, Invention is the process by which a new idea is discovered or created. In contrast innovation occurs when a new idea is adopted or used. He further defines the innovation-development process as, all of the decisions, activities, and their impacts that occur from recognition of a need or problem, through research, development, and commercialization of an innovation, through diffusion and adoption of the innovation by users, to its consequences. Rogers identified six phases of the innovation-development process: 1) Needs / Problems 2) Research Basic and Applied 3) Development 4) Commercialization 5) Diffusion and Adoption 6) Consequences Innovation Business Partners provides a full range of consulting services across all six phases. From identifying the critical needs and problems that drive invention to understanding the consequences of past innovations and how they drive the next problem set in a continuing spiral of innovation.