The global innovation 1000 making ideas work

strategy+business

forthcoming in issue 69 WinTer 2012

THE GLOBAL INNOVATION 1000

Making Ideas Work
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.

by barry jaruzelski, john loehr, and richard holman

preprint

strategy+business issue 69

feature innovation

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THE GLOBAL INNOVATION 1000: MAKING IDEAS WORK
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. by Barry Jaruzelski, John Loehr, and Richard Holman
Illustration by Francesco Bongiorni

feature innovation
2

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 amount 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 innova-

Barry Jaruzelski [e-mail] is a senior partner with Booz & Company in Florham Park, N.J., and the