The R&D imperative for industry has never been more compelling. Virtually all of industry has felt the impact of increased competition, much of it technically based, as well as the accelerated pace of technological challenge and change. The cumulative R&D expenditures and output of competition grows apace. No single company can grow its R&D investment at a rate commensurate with the sum of the international R&D forces growing in competition with it. The answer to the imperative cannot therefore be simply to invest more in R&D. “More” can never be enough. Instead, the answer for a growing number of companies is to deploy R&D investments more effectively, i.e., more strategically.
Editor’s Note: this article proposes to show how to put into practice Donald A. Schon’s concept that “the innovative work of a corporation consists in converting uncertainty to risk.” I am not convinced that the article did that so much as illustrate how to identify risk where many see only uncertainty…perhaps I am splitting hairs but it seems a relevant distinction.
Author: Philip A. Roussel
Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little)
Subjects: Management, Strategy
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