Innovation Management - Creating value with innovation management.

There has been a huge amount of growth in the outsourcing industry over recent years, so much so that it has become engrained in the way many large enterprises run their business. As the industry matures and the range of outsourcing services extends to higher value activities, client firms raise the bar regarding their expectations, seeking the delivery of high impact innovation from their vendors.

The World Intellectual Property Report 2011- The Changing Face of Innovation – a new WIPO publication – describes how ownership of intellectual property (IP) rights has become central to the strategies of innovating firms worldwide. With global demand for patents rising from 800,000 applications in the early 1980s to 1.8 million in 2009, the Report concludes that growing investments in innovation and the globalization of economic activities are key drivers of this trend.

Global organisations are largely failing to understand the intellectual property (IP) risks facing their organisations and the value of their intangible assets, according to a worldwide report by Marsh and Liberty International Underwriters (LIU). In the 2011 Intellectual Property Survey Report, three-quarters of respondents were unable to quantify the proportion of their firms’ value that could be attributed to intangible assets or goodwill. This is despite almost 70% of firms identifying the protection of IP as a crucial incentive to innovation in their firms.

The annual Global Innovation 1000 Study from Booz & Company shows that spending more on R&D won’t drive results. The most crucial factors are strategic alignment and a culture that supports innovation.

The European Commission’s 2011 “EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard” shows that R&D investment by top EU companies recovered strongly in 2010, with a 6.1% rise following a 2.6% decrease in 2009. However, data for the world’s top 1400 companies show EU companies as a whole lagging behind major competitors from the US and some Asian economies on R&D growth.

Universities can now access a new tool to help develop and manage their intellectual assets. The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has a new strategy guide called ‘Intellectual Asset Management for Universities’. This new guide provides advice and information to universities to help them understand how they can best use their institution’s Intellectual Property. This can be an invention, trade mark, original design or the application of a good idea.

The Expert Panel on Service Innovation in the EU handed over its final recommendations to Antonio Tajani, Vice-President of the European Commission with responsibility for Industry and Entrepreneurship, at a conference entitled ‘The Transformative Power of Service Innovation’ held in Rome, on 17 and 18 February 2011.

In this report we reveal in-depth research about what makes Silicon Valley startups successful. The report is a 50 page analysis based on data from 650+web startups. The report was coauthored by Berkeley & Stanford faculty members. Other contributors include Steve Blank, the Sandbox Network, and 10 accelerators from around the globe.

Literature is rife with books and articles on the history of innovation management. But what about the future? A recent global survey describes the five major innovation management concepts to watch in the next ten years.

How effective is innovation policy and which policies help or hinder? The Innovation Technology and Innovation Foundation takes a fresh look at global competition, examining the role of innovation policies in shaping competitive environments.

The idea of the creative city or creative class took a back seat while the chatter among businesses and policy makers turned to innovation. Yet complexity economics tells us cities are where the bulk of innovation happens. Is it time to revisit ‘places’ as the focal point of innovation activity? A new report suggests yes but we have also to revisit what we understand by a creative city or region.

The discipline of innovation management is still evolving – yes technologists and scientists have always done invention and product development, and entrepreneurs know how to bend markets to their will. But a discipline to stand alongside marketing, logistics and HR, that’s new. A report from HEC Business School is a welcome overview of how that discipline is taking shape.

As western countries jump further into the embrace of open innovation, countries in Asia are forging ahead with innovation investments through R&D. R&D spending is up 27% in India and 40% in China, year on year but in decline globally. Georges Haour runs a rule over the numbers and what they mean for the outlook of the enterprise.

An EU benchmark of national innovation capabilities has the United States out in front with some European countries falling behind the emerging economies. The US Government on the other hand is deeply concerned about its innovation capability. Haydn Shaughnessy asks if the benchmarks give us a way to rethink innovation.

Strategyn, an innovation management consulting firm, recently released the results of an independent study that measured the effectiveness of its patented Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI) methodology for launched products or services in the marketplace. The study found that products and services launched with ODI had greater success in the marketplace than products launched with traditional forms of innovation. The success rate for products launched using ODI was 86 percent, while traditional innovation methods yielded an average success rate of 17 percent.