Booz and Co published a study back in October that’s been on my reading list for a while. It’s had an interesting but not surprising conclusion -spending more on R&D wonβt drive results. The most crucial factors are strategic alignment and a culture that supports innovation.
To quote the study:
36 percent of all respondents to our survey admitted that their innovation strategy is not well aligned to their companyβs overall strategy, and 47 percent said their companyβs culture does not support their innovation strategy. Not surprisingly, companies saddled with both poor alignment and poor cultural support perform at a much lower level than well-aligned companies. In fact, companies with both highly aligned cultures and highly aligned innovation strategies have 30 percent higher enterprise value growth and 17 percent higher profit growth than companies with low degrees of alignment.