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Business Week has an article called “How to Measure Innovation”, wherein it discusses a British team and their goal to create an index to asses innovativeness in each industry.
Claiming that the original standard of money invested in R&D does not correlate properly with innovations, since banking and other industries spend very little on R&D yet have made some of the largest leaps in their field. Some of proposed criterion for this new innovation index:
organizational change
investment in management and skills training
competitive performance over time
a peer review in which company executives both help to define the innovation indicators and rate each other.
“Innovation today is multidirectional, not only about producing new products but also about services, technical standards, business models, and processes.”
So I guess this is considered “innovative innovation”?
Article: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jul2008/id20080716_335504.htm
Posted in Analysis, Evaluation, Innovation example, Student post | 
Tags: business week, innovation study, metric
Munir Mandviwalla
Brian R Bissell
Brian Michael Connelly
Eric Enders
Steven R Hernandez
Ryan P Maguire
Hasan A Numan
Victor J Bennicelli
Hiren Sheth
Yasmin Beganovic
Benjamin Mayer
Taylor Hayes
James Napier
Brandon Cammarano
Victoria L Cianciulli
Jillian J Davis
Michael Giurlando
Stacy D Gloster
Skyla Pope
Thomas Preston
Philip Raskovich
Nick Valeriano
Maurice T Winkfield
Kwok K Wong
Ermelinda Xhemali
This is a very interesting idea. Nice post! I would say that the first three (org change, investment, performance) have been considered before as measures. The idea of a peer review might just work. (BTW – your post also fits the evaluation category)
Thank you and I updated the post so it is now also in the evaluation category.
What a great find! That’s a really interesting concept and it goes perfectly into what we were discussing last week. I believe measuring innovation with these factors would lead to a great metric to have as a framework for comparability. I also think the quote you included sums it up well; it would be interesting to see how much of the “multidirectional” they could cover with the measurement.
I thought it was a very interesting article as well because it opens a whole new level of analysis. For example companies could use it to determine if new product lines are going in the right direction or if they will be profitable. However I think in order for the metric to be most useful or valid it has to be accepted and set as an international standard. This way all companies subscribe to the same set of criteria and therefore be most accurately compared.
Great article find. Being able to measure innovation allows for product success interpetation which allows for a better evaluation of risk on investment. Additionally, innovation can be benchmarked against metrics from other companies as technologies are reinvented or developed.