Innovation to drive European post-recession growth: Infosys research
Tapping new markets and adopting new technologies is key to growth, say business leaders
‘Shaping Europe’s Future’, is a recent study conducted by the European Business Awards. The detailed study is based on interviews with 80 business leaders of European companies with revenues in excess of $1 billion. These are mostly successful companies with over 60 percent reporting better performance than their competitors .
According to the study, growth is back on the agenda for businesses across Europe. It is also revealed that nearly two thirds (68 percent) of business leaders believe new ideas and innovation will be vital to driving business growth. Coming in a close second, 44 percent of these leaders believe that more than any other growth strategy, entering into and sourcing from new markets would serve as a leading driver of growth over the next two years.
However, in order for businesses to continue investing in new innovative technologies, the study found that more work is required to prove return on investment (ROI) on new ideas.
Key findings of the study
- Innovation in all areas of business is actively encouraged by 86 percent of the leaders surveyed. 73 percent said their organizations have formal processes for capturing innovative ideas.
- However, while 84 percent say an ROI model is essential all of the time or some of the time, over half of businesses surveyed highlighted that they do not have a way to show ROI on innovation internally.
- Just behind entering new markets, 35 percent of respondents rated the introduction of new technologies such as the Internet, cloud and social media as key to growth.
- Nearly two thirds (63 percent) of businesses stated that the IT department is now the primary growth engine for their business. The most important roles of the IT department are centered around enabling growth: bringing new ideas to the business, implementing new technologies quickly and effectively, and co-creating in order to launch new products and enter new markets.
- IT enjoys a strategic role when it comes to business growth, with only eight percent of business leaders citing cost-cutting as the most important role for the technology department.
