The annual Boston Consulting Group (BCG) list of the most innovative companies is in and, as you’d expect, the global tech giants have dominated the top 50.
The list is voted on by 1500 global CMOs who’ve put Apple into the number one spot for the 11th straight year. Interestingly, 70 per cent of the companies that made the list were American while two Asian firms – Samsung (7th) and Toyota (8th) – made this year’s top 10. You can check out the full BCG report here.
2016’s biggest mover on the list was Facebook, which jumped 19 spots from the previous year to come in at ninth position. The top 50 included:
Apple tends to score exceedingly well in the innovation stakes because of the enormous amount it spends on its R&D. While Google landed second spot on the list for the third year in a row based on its “20 per cent rule” that asks employees to spend 20 per cent of their working day on passion projects.
Sadly, no Aussie firms got a look-in. Ten of the 50 were European companies, six from Asia and the rest were American.
BCG found that the majority of innovators took an analytical approach to the pursuit of new ideas, with 65 per cent discovering fresh perspectives from social networks or using big data mining.
BCG’s Andrew Taylor said of the top 50: “Given faster-changing markets-and the fact that even in more traditional sectors technology is becoming a key differentiator-a not-invented-here mindset can be fatal.
“Today’s most successful innovators strike a strategic balance between internal and external innovation. They are smart and efficient at scanning for external ideas-and deft at bringing them inside,” he said.
