Economic Recovery Inspires Innovation and Frustration

As innovation revives, companies struggle to make it boost profitable growth. GE, Tata Motors, Marvel, and Virgin Galactic offer diverse models

BusinessWeek, November 16, 2009 — While they continue to slog through the longest economic downturn in decades, companies are no longer making cost-cutting their primary focus. Innovation is now front and center on the corporate agenda, according to a global survey we recently conducted with 65 senior executives from diverse industries. Executives are adding more breakthrough innovations and business model changes to their portfolio to fuel the growth engine for the recovery.

Yet our survey reveals that companies by and large are having trouble making innovation efforts work

Google Searches for Ways to Keep Big Ideas at Home†

Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2009 — Google Inc. is revamping how it develops and prioritizes new products, giving employees a pipeline to the company's top brass amid worries about losing its best people and promising ideas to start-ups.

The Mountain View, Calif., company famously lets its engineers spend one day a week on projects that aren't part of their jobs. But Google has lacked a formal process for senior executives to review those efforts, and some ideas have languished. Others have slipped away when employees left the company.