06/10/2020

The International Innovation Imperative

Modern opportunities and challenges in R&D footprint optimization

While businesses large and small across a broad swath of the global economy are focusing resources on stabilizing from economic shocks being felt around the world, many companies will resolve to emerge stronger and more competitive than before. Many organizations will likely see the spike in remote collaboration and distributed innovation as a strength upon which to build, especially in the area of international research, design and product development.

Internationalization of the enterprise R&D footprint is not a new phenomenon. From automotive to consumer goods to pharmaceuticals, companies that blazed the trail of globalization in the 20th century often deployed R&D activities outside of their home countries to augment innovation capabilities, crack the code of new markets and increase the efficiency of commercialization.

But as the competitive landscape in many sectors becomes increasingly diverse and globalized, and as technology enables the pace of innovation to accelerate exponentially across sectors, as well as geographies, business leaders face a modern set of opportunities and challenges in determining how to optimize their R&D footprint.

The case for geographic dispersion of R&D capabilities
Decades of research on R&D footprint diversification and internationalization consistently illustrates that companies who invest commensurately in strategic R&D dispersion generally reap the rewards of enhanced innovation capacity and accelerated speed-to-market. While this approach introduces unique challenges for every individual business (it is certainly not one-size-fits-all), and substantial risks must be mitigated and constantly monitored, the benefits an enterprise stands to derive from gaining access to additional creative ecosystems tend to be transformative and highly advantageous.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Chief Executive.