Too many companies are failing to innovate. One reason, say the authors, is the polarized approach companies take to innovation. At one end of the spectrum, corporate R&D efforts tend to focus on product refreshes and incremental line upgrades that generate modest growth for lower risk. At the other end, venture capitalists favor high-risk “transformational” innovations that seek to upend industries and generate outsize returns. But there’s a better, middle, way.
This article presents the growth driver model, a framework that partners corporations with outside investors to identify and develop innovation opportunities, drawing on corporate resources and talent and externally recruited entrepreneurs. The authors illustrate the model with a detailed case study of how it revived innovation at Cordis, a large medical technology device maker.
All too many companies, large and small, are failing to innovate. As a result, problems remain unsolved, technologies aren’t invented, and jobs go uncreated. Lost productivity cost the U.S. economy more than $10 trillion between 2006 and 2018.
Companies take a polarized approach to innovation. Corporate R&D efforts focus on safe product refreshes and incremental line upgrades; venture capitalists favor funding high-risk, high-return and often disruptive innovations, anticipating that returns from the few successes will compensate for the investments in failures.
Exploit the space in the middle through a growth driver model that partners corporations with outside investors to identify and develop innovation opportunities, drawing on corporate resources and talent and externally recruited entrepreneurs.
An innovation crisis is brewing in the United States: Too many firms, both large and small, are failing to innovate. As a result, problems remain unsolved, technologies are never invented, and meaningful jobs go uncreated. According to one estimate, lost productivity cost the economy more than $10 trillion between 2006 and 2018, roughly equivalent to $95,000 per U.S. worker.
