Unilever, Walmart, P&G Buck the Short-Term Trend†

As Recession Forces Cuts, Leaders Build for Future With Marketing, R&D

Advertising Age, June 29, 2009 — It's been said over and over: There's no time like recession, when competitors are retreating, to ramp up innovation and marketing to grab share.

So far, the competitors have done their part. U.S. trademark applications through mid-June were down 17% from a year ago; patent application growth stalled last year after more than a decade of high single-digit annual growth; and ad spending plunged 14% last quarter, according to TNS Media Research.

The intrepid share-grabbers have been harder to find. Now, however, as the dust settles from the fourth-quarter financial collapse, a growing number of them appear to be sticking their heads out of the bunkers to lay the groundwork for long-term growth in a short-term-obsessed world.

R&D Spending Holds Steady in Slump†

Big Companies Invest to Grab Sales in Recovery; the iPod Lesson

Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2009 — Major U.S. companies are cutting jobs and wages. But many are still spending on innovation.

Wary of emerging from the recession with obsolete products, big U.S. companies spent nearly as much on research and development in the dismal last quarter of 2008 as they did a year earlier, even as their revenue fell 7.7%, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The sampling looked at 28 of the largest U.S. R&D spenders, excluding deeply troubled auto makers and the drug industry, where R&D spending is dictated by government requirements.

At Kodak, Some Old Things Are New Again

Eastman Kodak, which once considered itself the Bell Labs of chemistry, has embraced the digital world and the researchers who understand it

New York Times, May 2, 2008 — Steven J. Sasson, an electrical engineer who invented the first digital camera at Eastman Kodak in the 1970s, remembers well management’s dismay at his featMy prototype was big as a toaster, but the technical people loved it,” Mr. Sasson said. “But it was filmless photography, so management’s reaction was, ‘that’s cute — but don’t tell anyone about it.’ ”

Since then, of course, Kodak, which once considered itself the Bell Labs of chemistry, has embraced the digital world and the researchers who understand it.

The World's Most Innovative Companies

Smart ideas for tough times: The 50 companies that make up our annual ranking nurture cultures that value creative people in good times and bad

BusinessWeek, April 17, 2008 — Suddenly, innovation has a bull's-eye on its back. As the recession debate shifts from "what if" to "how long," slashing research and development budgets just got a lot more tempting. That high-risk product in your pipeline? It's about to get much more scrutiny. And the "chief innovation officer" your CEO brought in last year to show his commitment to creativity? He'd better start proving his worth. Outside consultants are starting to pick up on the effects of such belt-tightening. "I'm seeing it in my business," says Jeneanne Rae, president of Alexandria (Va.)-based consulting firm Peer Insight. "There's this sense of which shoe's going to drop next."

Others are seeing two camps emerge. "One is saying times are tough, so it's the most important time... continue reading

How a Firm Got Smart To Fight Grime, Rivals†

Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2008 — Beset by cheap imports from overseas and facing a slowing U.S. economy in 2002, Tennant Co., a big name in the small market for industrial floor-cleaners, could have tightened its belt and sent more of its factory jobs overseas.

Instead, the Minneapolis company decided to place a big bet that it could outsmart its competitors with innovative products.

The Customer Connection: The Global ­­­Innovation 1000

Booz Allen Hamilton’s annual study of the world’s largest corporate R&D spenders finds two primary success factors: aligning the innovation model to corporate strategy and listening to customers every

Strategy & Business, December 10, 2007 — How do companies innovate successfully? They can spend the most money, hire the best engineers, develop the best technology, and conduct the best market research. But unless their research and development efforts are driven by a thorough understanding of what their customers want, their performance may well fall short — at least compared to that of their more customer-driven competitors. John Schiech, president of the DeWalt division of Black & Decker (the division that makes power tools used by professional contractors), put it simply. When asked what made his com­pany so successful, he responded, “It’s engineers and marketing product managers spending hours and hours on job sites talking to the guys who are trying to make their living with these... continue reading