The ROI of innovation

The real challenge of innovation isn't the development of ideas but successfully managing the process so that it delivers a good ROI in money, time, and people. Most attempts fail to generate enough payback--especially in cash. To address this problem, think about innovation as a process that uses new knowledge to generate a payback in terms of process (a tightly managed, flexible process that drives a string of business results), new knowledge (the innovation process uses new knowledge to generate more new knowledge, which in turn spurs even more innovation), and payback, either as a direct or indirect result. Numbers frequently fail to measure what matters most when it comes to innovation. To provide better information for innovation decisions, draw a cash curve that graphically plots cumulative cash flow over time. Make sure the information needed to measure the four areas of improvement-startup costs, speed to market, scale to volume, and support are available.

Read more about the ROI of innovation:
- read the article at Optimize

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