Reinventing Innovation: To gain an edge in a reviving economy, companies are looking for little ideas that can create big value
July 4, 2014 Leave a comment
July 2, 2014
CFO Magazine
Reinventing Innovation: To gain an edge in a reviving economy, companies are looking for little ideas that can create big value.
Even with economic activity rustling back to life, few companies are eager to make big bets. A thin layer of growth hardly forms a solid enough foundation for businesses to pour money into hunting down breakthrough discoveries or conceiving cutting-edge technologies.
Not that it’s a bad time for innovation. In fact, now is an ideal time for a focused form of it. In a study of 275 senior finance executives conducted by CFO Research, in collaboration with American Express, just 13% of respondents said that they expected their companies to spend and invest “substantially more” in the coming year, with about a third (34%) choosing “about the same amount.” (See Figure 1, below.) (The full report, Reinventing Innovation, can be downloaded from cfo.com/research.)
That said, investing in innovation during the early stages of a recovery can yield abundant benefits when the economy regains its full sheen. Armed with new offerings, a business can position itself to grab market share from its less-prepared rivals. As aware of this as they may be, finance executives aren’t about to cast away the cost-consciousness that has served their companies well during the downturn. What they are doing, instead, is bringing a new level of discipline to the innovation process.
Read more at http://ww2.cfo.com/the-economy/2014/07/reinventing-innovation/view-all/
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