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2013 marks a growing corporate focus on innovation

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Soma Tah
New Update

BOSTON, USA: The 2013 State of Global Innovation Report by Imaginatik reveals an increasingly clear picture of the emerging role innovation plays in today's business world.

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The survey report shows that companies are focusing on innovation as a dedicated response to competitive and technology pressures. Nearly two thirds of companies (63 percent) reported that innovation has been on the management agenda for more than two years, and more than half (56 percent) said that innovation is already an organization-wide competency being actively managed at the corporate level.

Furthermore, innovation is increasingly rising onto the C-level agenda. More than three-quarters (77 percent) of respondents named the CEO as the partial or primary driver of innovation initiatives, with sizable numbers also mentioning the Chief Strategy Officer (53 percent), Chief Marketing Officer (46 percent), and Chief Innovation Officer (42 percent). The majority of organizations (72 percent) also cited a cross-functional executive team as a driver of innovation activities.

Yet despite the newfound enthusiasm, actual progress on implementing innovation strategies is uneven. More than half of respondents (56 percent) mention that innovation strategy is a key unresolved challenge, and more than three-quarters (81 percent) say that lackluster follow-through on good ideas is a major impediment to innovation success. As a consequence, most organizations have not yet demonstrated clear business results from innovation activities.

"These findings suggest that innovation is emerging as a long-term, strategic business priority," said Matt Cooper, CEO at Imaginatik. "However, it will take time and effort for companies to make headway on delivering consistent results through innovation."