Bloomberg News

Innovation Insights

Key findings of our annual survey of senior executives

By Jena McGregor

Innovation may be one of the hottest buzzwords in business today. But at the world’s largest companies, senior executives understand that innovation is much more than an easy-to-achieve management fad du jour. Rather, our survey of senior executives finds a keen awareness of innovation’s obstacles, from risk-averse cultures to lengthy development times. Just 41% of executives think their companies are excellent or above average at moving quickly to develop new ideas. And more than half of our respondents are dissatisfied with the financial returns they’ve seen as a result of investments in innovation. (CFOs, ever a skeptical bunch, grumble even more: Only 37% are satisfied with how their companies are spending their innovation dollars.) Take a look at these and other findings of our survey—along with the rankings of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by region—here.

Data: BusinessWeek-Boston Consulting Group 2007 Most Innovative Companies survey of senior executives

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