The early stages of innovation can be challenging. But Booz & Company’s annual study of R&D spending reveals that successful innovators bring clarity to a process often described as fuzzy and vague.

Year after year, our Global Innovation 1000 study has demonstrated that it is not how much companies spend on research and development that determines success — what really matters is how those R&D funds are invested in talent, process, and tools. In addition to our recurring analysis of R&D spending trends, our eighth annual study of the world’s 1000 largest corporate R&D spenders focuses on the “fuzzy front end” of the innovation process — the tools, mechanisms and networks companies use to generate ideas and effectively convert them into commercialization projects.

Every economic downturn comes with the same refrain: The world, we’re told, is losing its creative capacity, hurting our chances for a speedy recovery. Yet inevitably, when worries about innovation erosion surface, some company rises up with a great new product, technology, or service to prove the naysayers wrong. And all too often, observers simply fail to pay attention to the many companies that make successful innovation part of their regular practice — indeed, their operating model — in ways that don’t necessarily make big headlines.

Those companies are the quiet stars of our annual Global Innovation 1000 study of R&D spending. As our study has consistently shown over the past eight years, there is no long-term correlation between the mount of money a company spends on its innovation efforts and its overall financial performance; instead, what matters is how companies use that money and other resources, as well as the quality of their talent, processes, and decision making. Those are the things that determine their ability to execute their innovation agendas...


Download this year's study (785kb, PDF 16 pages) :
www.strategyand.pwc.com/media/uploads/BoozCo_The-2012-Global-Innovation-1000-Study.pdf