????企業(yè)能否變成更好的創(chuàng)新者？目前，成熟經(jīng)濟(jì)體的經(jīng)濟(jì)增長陷入停滯，發(fā)展中國家的經(jīng)濟(jì)增長放緩，很多專家對國內(nèi)外創(chuàng)新的數(shù)量和質(zhì)量感到憂心忡忡。值此之際，上述問題已經(jīng)變成了一個價值數(shù)百萬美元的問題。

????過去八年里，我們的博斯管理咨詢公司（Booz & Company）每年都對創(chuàng)新投入力度最大的1,000家上市公司進(jìn)行研發(fā)支出調(diào)查。每年我們都發(fā)現(xiàn)，企業(yè)研發(fā)支出的多少與總體業(yè)績表現(xiàn)無關(guān)。例如，蘋果（Apple）在我們的調(diào)查中總是成為最具創(chuàng)新力的公司，但其研發(fā)支出只占到營收的2.2%，大大低于整個計算機(jī)和電子行業(yè)的6.5%。

????這1,000家公司的研發(fā)支出在2011年總共達(dá)到了6,030億美元，同比增加了9.6%。但其中很多錢并沒有用在刀刃上。作為今年調(diào)查的一部分，我們調(diào)查、采訪了企業(yè)高管他們在創(chuàng)新早期階段的活動情況。在這個階段，企業(yè)產(chǎn)生、然后審查創(chuàng)意。這些創(chuàng)意最終將變成新的產(chǎn)品和服務(wù)。但調(diào)查結(jié)果并不令人滿意。

????接受我們調(diào)查的企業(yè)高管中，46%的人承認(rèn)，他們構(gòu)思新創(chuàng)意并將之投入產(chǎn)品研發(fā)階段的努力沒有取得很好的效果。只有四分之一的人說，他們的公司既善于構(gòu)思創(chuàng)意，同時也善于研發(fā)。由于這些公司采取的新產(chǎn)品研發(fā)和上市策略不同，調(diào)查結(jié)果也存在很大差別。

????如果企業(yè)與客戶直接交流，了解他們的需求，然后率先向市場推出新產(chǎn)品，這種早期創(chuàng)新的努力往往更有效。

????如果企業(yè)依靠對已選定市場的深刻了解來開展?jié)u進(jìn)性創(chuàng)新，但由此誕生的產(chǎn)品并不是市場先入者，他們在構(gòu)思和審查新創(chuàng)意方面的效果就會更差。看重技術(shù)解決方案、需要顛覆性技術(shù)的公司也是如此。

????但這些區(qū)別并不重要。真正重要的是企業(yè)在執(zhí)行已選定策略方面的表現(xiàn)如何（前提是的確存在創(chuàng)新策略，事實是，近20%的企業(yè)都沒有）。企業(yè)必須首先把創(chuàng)新和公司整體戰(zhàn)略結(jié)合起來，然后確保自己有能力執(zhí)行這個策略，并保證公司的文化和結(jié)構(gòu)與之相適應(yīng)。

????舉個例子，惠普（Hewlett-Packard）的成功長期以來都是由其技術(shù)創(chuàng)新推動。如果惠普決定從大規(guī)模的PC消費者需求調(diào)查中尋找創(chuàng)新線索，它就不會那么成功。“消費者其實并不知道什么是有可能的，”惠普企業(yè)戰(zhàn)略和聯(lián)盟高級副總裁吉里希?奈爾說。“他們能說出自己的需求，但他們不知道技術(shù)能做到什么程度，尤其是因為技術(shù)的能力變化很快。必須把它創(chuàng)造出來……。”

????Can companies learn to become better innovators? At a time when economic growth is stagnating in mature economies and slowing in developing ones, and experts far and wide are fretting over the degree and quality of innovation here and abroad, this has turned into a (multi) million-dollar question.

????For the past eight years, our firm, Booz & Company, has conducted an annual study on R&D spending among the 1,000 public companies that spend the most on innovation. Every year, we affirm that there is no correlation between how much a company spends on R&D and its overall financial performance. Apple (AAPL), for instance, has consistently been named the most innovative company in our study, yet it spends just 2.2% of its revenue on R&D, well below the 6.5% of revenue spent by the computing and electronics industry as a whole.

????Overall spending among all 1,000 companies increased by 9.6% in 2011 compared to the previous year, to $603 billion. But a great deal of that money is not being spent wisely. As part of this year's study, we surveyed and interviewed executives about their activities during the early stages of innovation, when companies generate and then vet the ideas that will eventually become new products and services. The results were not encouraging.

????Forty-six percent of the executives we surveyed admitted that their efforts to generate good new ideas and move them into product development stage were only marginally effective, and just a quarter of them said their companies were good at both idea generation and development. These results vary considerably based on the strategy that these companies follow in developing new products and taking them to market.

????Companies that directly engage customers in hopes of understanding their needs and wants, and then try to be first to market with their new products, tend to be more effective in their early-stage innovation efforts.

????Companies that depend on a deep understanding of their chosen markets and prefer to innovate through incremental improvement, even if they aren't first to market with the resulting products, are somewhat less effective at generating and vetting new ideas. Also less effective are companies that emphasize technology solutions and need a robust pipeline of game-changing technology.

????But even these distinctions don't matter as much as how well a company can execute on its chosen strategy (assuming that it actually has a strategy for innovation; nearly 20% of companies don't). A company must first strive to get its innovation and overall business strategies on the same page. Then it must make sure it has the agility to carry out this strategy, and make sure its culture and organization are on board.

????Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), for example, whose success has long been driven by its technological wizardry, would likely be much less successful if it decided to take its innovation cues primarily from extensive market research into what PC consumers want. "Consumers don't really know what is possible," says Girish Nair, HP's senior vice president of corporate strategy and alliances. "They can describe what they want, but they don't know what the technology can do, especially because what the technology can do changes rapidly. You have to create it…."