EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Useful and Emerging Practices of Highly Innovative Organizations in the Digital Era

When The Conference Board asked CEOs globally to think about how the world would look in 2025, they said innovation remains an essential priority. And for good reason: highly innovative companies have higher growth and higher profits than less or noninnovative ones; moreover, their stock market performance shows it.^[1]

But how do CEOs determine whether the company is sufficiently innovative? Signposts of Innovation, a measurement framework The Conference Board has developed, stresses that measuring, tracking, and ultimately managing innovation performance and its success require a holistic view of innovation, which we define as:

A process that results in the creation and use of a new or significantly improved product or service; production or operating process; way of attracting customers by enhancing their experience; and organizational practice, work design, human capital competency, or use of resources that creates value.

To provide more clarity on the emerging practices of highly innovative organizations and to uncover their methodologies, technologies, and habits, The Conference Board and InnovationOne partnered in 2019 to field our second Global State of Innovation survey of organizational leaders at the manager level and above from North America, Europe, and Asia.