Every company, in every industry, needs an innovation strategy — whether it be high-tech product innovation, packaging innovation in consumer goods, or process innovation at financial services companies. Now more than ever, innovation is key to growth, to acquiring and sustaining competitive advantage, and to building shareholder value for the long term. At the same time, the innovation process is fast becoming more open, and more global: Setting up shop in local markets around the world and getting customers more involved in innovation efforts are now a vital part of any successful innovation effort.

Developing a powerful innovation capability is no easy task. Booz & Company’s innovation practice has demonstrated again and again, in its annual Global Innovation 1000 research, that there is no correlation between the amount of money a company spends on research and development and its overall financial results. Instead, success depends on a variety of factors, including a company’s openness to new ideas, its ability to manage innovation projects from conception to market introduction, to kill projects early on, if necessary, and to tie new-product development tightly to specific sales, marketing and financial goals.

Since the 1950s, when it introduced the concept of product life-cycle management in the seminal article “How to Organize for New Products” in the Harvard Business Review and created the PERT (Project Evaluation and Review Technique) methodology to streamline the U.S. Navy’s development of the Polaris missile, Booz & Company has been a trusted innovation advisor. The firm’s innovation experts can help clients improve their innovation functions, including new-product development, research and development, and engineering. We advise companies on setting strategy, making needed process and organizational changes, building new innovation capabilities, and assessing the scientific and technological robustness of their offerings. Our proven expertise in these areas, combined with our rich industry insight, allows us to identify innovation strategies and processes that are both technically and economically sound.