Watch:
To discover which companies innovate best — and why — BusinessWeek joined with The Boston Consulting Group to produce their second annual ranking of the 25 most innovative companies. More than 1,000 senior managers responded to the global survey, making it their deepest management survey to date on this critical issue.
Today, innovation is about much more than new products. It is about reinventing business processes and building entirely new markets that meet untapped customer needs. Most important, as the Internet and globalization widen the pool of new ideas, it’s about selecting and executing the right ideas and bringing them to market in record time.
The new ranking has companies evoking all types of innovation. There are technology innovators, such as BlackBerry maker and newcomer Research In Motion Ltd., which makes its debut on the list at No. 24. There are business model innovators, such as No. 11 Virgin Group Ltd., which applies its hip lifestyle brand to ho-hum operations such as airlines, financial services, and even health insurance. Process innovators are there, too: Rounding out the ranking is Southwest Airlines Co. at No. 25, a whiz at wielding operational improvements to outfly its competitors.
At the top of the list are the masters of many genres of innovation. Take Apple Computer Inc., once again the creative king. To launch the iPod, says innovation consultant Larry Keeley of Doblin Inc., Apple used no fewer than seven types of innovation. They included networking (a novel agreement among music companies to sell their songs online), business model (songs sold for a buck each online), and branding (how cool are those white ear buds and wires?). Consumers love the ease and feel of the iPod, but it is the simplicity of the iTunes software platform that turned a great MP3 player into a revenue-gushing phenomenon.
Charts: Laurel Daunis-Allen/BW
The BusinessWeek-BCG survey is more than just a Who’s Who list of innovators. It also focuses on the major obstacles to innovation that executives face today. While 72% of the senior executives in the survey named innovation as one of their top three priorities, almost half said they were dissatisfied with the returns on their investments in that area.
Sources
BusinessWeek – The World’s Most Innovative Companies