How Widespread Collaboration Advances Innovation

With relatively few executives describing their organization as an "innovation leader," companies are resorting to nontraditional methods to drive innovation, according to a recent "Innovation Benchmark" report from PwC's Strategy&. The report reveals that the majority of organizations are deploying so-called "open" innovation models, while "co-creating" with customers, partners and suppliers. With this approach, they hope to inspire fresher thinking, stronger C-suite leadership, and clearer business models to encourage more business-benefiting inspiration and creativity. However, most survey respondents admit that their organization still struggles to align their innovation strategy with their business operations—a formidable obstacle to overcome if efforts are to meet with success. The "nearly universal requirement to innovate is putting pressure on companies around the world to find the best ways to nurture, manage and measure innovation so that it delivers superior financial results, from strategy through execution," according to the report. "For most companies, that means opening up the innovation process more to customers, employees and partners. It's a far cry from the days when innovation was viewed as a functional capability existing only inside isolated R&D centers. Instead, organizations say they're focused on creating winning innovation cultures across their companies, and in bringing new thinking and ideas to their innovation initiatives, from both inside and outside corporate boundaries." More than 1,200 global executives took part in the research.