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I've been doing a lot of reading this week,
thanks mainly to the very efficient support staff at the UK's
Imperial College, and the Helsinki School of Economics. But you'll
have to wait until next week for the results.
In the meantime, think about this: Booz Allen
Hamilton, the management consultancy, has just produced a report
on what it believes is the deepest study yet of the return on
R&D spending on corporate performance. Bottom line? - it's brains,
not bucks that matter, although brawn helps.
BAH researchers checked the numbers associated
with its Global Innovation 1000 members, which they reckon accounts
for about 60% of all R&D spending worldwide, governments included,
to conclude that:
Money doesn't buy results. There is no
relationship between R&D spending and corporate growth, profitability
and shareholder return.
Size matters, but only because you can
absorb failure more easily.
You can be too rich or too thin, meaning
spending more doesn't necessarily produce more, but spending less
definitely hurts. But there's no telling how much is enough.
It's the process, not the pocketbook that
counts. Improving the accuracy of your bets is more important
than the size of the bet. (Ask any gambler.)
Collaboration is key. That means you
win bigger if you improve how you manage the entire process from
customer need through R&D, engineering and marketing to customer
feedback to R&D, engineering. You get the picture.
Until next time.
--
Ian Grant
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