Companies are making blind bets on innovation with billions of dollars potentially on the line, according to a survey of over 1200 global executives and business leaders. The PwC Innovation Benchmark examines how top companies are meeting innovation challenges.
Most companies struggle to align their business and innovation strategies, leaving many companies flying blind as they place bets on innovation. A finding that is especially important as the report also found that strategy, not size of investment, is the greatest determining factor in the success of an innovation initiative.
The aim of the study was to understand how these business leaders view innovation and what they are doing to better reap its rewards. Innovation was looked at across a complex set of challenges, including innovation strategy, operating models, culture, metrics, and more in a bid to understand how companies are seeking to create business value and financial returns on their efforts.
The survey findings show that companies are struggling with clearly aligning their innovation efforts with their business strategy.
Tielman Botha, Digital Lead for PwC South Africa, says: “Innovation is a major part of the competitive equation for 21st century business. The capacity to create value through the development of new customer experiences, products, services, technologies, processes and business and delivery models is one of the keys to profitability, growth and survival.
“In an era of digital business and rapid technology change, virtually no company can ignore the imperative to innovate. Failure to do so is an invitation to lose business. This report identifies the pain points for executives across all industries to help find solutions to drive innovation that will align with business strategy and result in bottom-line success.”
The report also explores the different approaches to ideation and innovation models deemed most successful. Overall, companies are becoming more inclusive and are adopting innovation models that bring more voices to the table, including employees across all levels and departments. Not only does this foster fresh thinking, it also establishes a more innovative culture. Furthermore, companies are looking to customers as partners as they look to create the next big breakthrough innovation.
Among these findings, PwC’s Innovation Benchmark also found that:
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