A new approach has been developed at the University of Cambridge Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) to help companies assess how good they are at managing innovation and new technologies.
The development of successful new products and services is critical for profitable, sustainable growth. Investing in new technology is often essential but represents a significant challenge in today’s globalised and rapidly changing markets.
Companies face a variety of innovation and technology challenges. For example, how do you:
- Make sure that R&D is doing what the business needs it to do
- Maintain a healthy innovation pipeline
- Strike the right balance between risk and opportunity
- Back the right technologies
- Identify synergies across the business
- Form successful partnerships with organisations such as universities and start-ups
- Design products, processes and services which really meet customers’ needs
- Equip people with the right knowledge, skills and attitudes
- Reorganise your R&D to support new business structures, such as moving from regional to global business units?
The full assessment approach
- Preliminary Briefing to understand business context and agree scope of the assessment
- Online self-assessment survey to gather views on the organisation’s capabilities in terms of three key areas:Strategy, Systems, and People and Organisation.
- In-depth interviews to discuss survey ratings and provide an objective assessment of your company’s
position, validated in terms of the wider industry context - Results briefing highlighting particular strengths and weaknesses as well as areas where opinions diverge
- Facilitated discussion to identify priority areas for improvement and agree an action plan.
More information is available from IFM
