Booz-Allen annual survey (sub-required) on innovation and R&D and a list of 118 "high leverage" innovators...
Some extracts from summary
"And as in years past, we found no statistically significant connection between the amount of money a company spent on innovation and its financial performance."
"The high-leverage innovators consistently achieve better sustained financial performance than their industry peers while spending less on R&D. We’ve spoken to executives at a number of these companies, including Black & Decker. When listing the reasons for their success, they all mention two key factors. The first is strategic alignment: They work hard to align their innovation strategies closely to overall corporate strategy. The second is customer focus: They all have processes in place to pay close attention to their customers in every phase of the innovation value chain, from idea generation to product development to marketing."
"We identified three distinct innovation strategies. Because nearly all the companies favored just one of the three strategies, we classified them into three categories.
Need Seekers: These companies actively engage current and potential customers to shape new products, services, and processes; they strive to be first to market with those products.
Market Readers: These companies watch their markets carefully, but they maintain a more cautious approach, focusing largely on creating value through incremental change.
Technology Drivers: These companies follow the direction suggested by their technological capabilities, leveraging their investment in research and development to drive breakthrough innovation and incremental change, often seeking to solve the unarticulated needs of their customers."
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