Uniquely, this study explores in some depth the processes and approaches used by companies for innovation management, shows how these contribute to innovation success, and enables participating companies to benchmark themselves against their peers. Drawing on over 650 responses across 2010 and 2012, the study sheds new light on the basic key question: What are the important innovation management techniques to invest in to achieve a better return on innovation investment?

The main results show:

• There is strong statistical evidence that excellence in innovation management based on Arthur D. Little’s model leads to higher innovation performance
• Top quartile innovation performers obtain on average 13% more profit from new products and services than average performers, and 30% shorter time-to-break-even, although the gap is narrowing
• Innovation performance achieved has decreased on average since 2010, and although the satisfaction with this level of performance has increased, the majority of firms are dissatisfied with their innovation performance
• There is a clear correlation between capability in innovation measurement and innovation success, yet less than 20% of companies believe they have a decent innovation measurement capability
• That a number of key innovation management practices have a particularly strong impact on innovation performance across industries and provides best practice cases studies highlighting the benefits of implementing these practices.
• Top innovators do much better in adopting best practices in accelerating growth

The benchmark is still open to you

The diagnostic framework developed by Arthur D. Little for the Innovation Excellence study remains accessible for companies interested in benchmarking their innovation performance against peers and understanding the opportunities to improve their innovation practices.  All data is presented in an anonymized format.  If you are interested please make contact with the benchmark team. The study toolkit is available in PDF or online, in English, Chinese and Arabic.