Today, Forbes released their 2015 list of Top 10 Most Innovative Companies and named NetSuite number 2.
So how did NetSuite rise to the top of Forbes’ list? IBM’s Anthony Marshal writes “Three Traits the Most Innovative Companies Share” in Forbes, saying:
What makes an organization successful? Innovation may be an easy answer.
However, we’ve found that the most successful companies approach innovation differently than their competitors. Those are the findings of “More than Magic: How the Most Successful Organizations Innovate,” a new study of more than 1,000 C-suite level executives and their direct reports in 17 industries worldwide. The survey, by the IBM Institute for Business Value and the Economist Intelligence Unit, found that the top 9 percent of organizations — as measured by both revenue growth and operating efficiency — pursue distinct strategies across their organization, culture and processes.
The nature of innovation is changing. Innovation has become more open and increasingly occurs within economic ecosystems. Innovation today typically involves teamwork and collaboration. While the “magic” of innovation still exists, breakthroughs these days are driven by science and numbers, data and insight.
For today’s business leaders, innovation is more than magic: it is the art and science of anticipating the future. It is about understanding what the full potential of new technologies might be, and of knowing what customers need and want — even before they know it themselves. And it is about building organizational and ecosystem-wide capabilities to execute and deliver. Successful organizations align innovation activities with business objectives, and they are not afraid to experiment. They see innovation as a critical business process, a change maker and a cultural imperative.
Our analysis found three traits that the most successful companies share, which distinguishes them from the pack. The most successful organizations are:
1. Organized in ways that support systemic innovation to align innovation activities directly with business objectives, pursue “open” innovation structures and create specialized innovation teams. In fact, our study found that the most successful companies are 37 percent more likely to embrace open innovation.
2. Aligned to make innovation thrive as part of their culture to maintain a clear focus on innovation across all business activities, encouraging innovative behaviors and finding ways to sustain innovation momentum. These successful companies are 79 percent more likely to establish dedicated innovation teams.
3. Using processes that convert ideas into real innovation tofind new ideas from diverse locations and analyze the big data. At these firms, innovation is funded separately and measured rigorously. The most successful organizations are 48 percent more likely to measure the financial returns from innovation investments.
Innovation is increasingly occurring within what we call the everyone-to-everyone (E2E) economy. E2E encompasses a fundamental shift in mindset from “me” to “we.” In years past, organizations pushed out products and services to customers and then told customers why they were valuable. Today, continuing digital evolution and revolution, combined with a transition from traditional market-based economic structures to an ecosystem-based environment, is transforming innovation.
Our study also found that technology, which enables organizations to respond faster to customer needs and build compelling new capabilities and business models, is at the core of innovation.
Innovative organizations outperform their competitors. The most successful innovators are able to create new types of business value in sustainable ways. Innovation is a systematic discipline that can be embraced by all organizations. By adopting a more rigorous approach to innovation, organizations will position themselves to become the innovation leaders of the future.
Anthony Marshall is the Strategy and Analytics Leader for IBM’s Institute for Business Value.