Which Automotive companies lead the innovation race..?

Last month global management consultancy, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), published its annual report on the world’s most innovative companies. As usual there were some interesting insights, but the one which stood out most was that nearly ‘half’ of the Top 20 were car makers.

In fact, three companies in the top 10 and nine in the top 20 were large global auto makers, with two – Ford and BMW – breaking into the top 10 for the first time since the survey began in 2005.

Linking innovation to competitive advantage

• Whichever form innovation takes, the goal is to create value, capture or defend market share and build a sustainable competitive advantage. Key to this is protecting intellectual property (IP) rights, or in simple terms, ensuring your most clever ideas cannot be copied and used by competitors.

  Top innovators treat innovation as an integral part of their businesses, systematising its creation, harnessing its use and managing it as a source of competitive advantage to deliver long-term value.

  

  Unlike fashionable young software companies in the Valley, who ‘disrupt’ the status quo of established players, automotive innovation is less about big steps and more about ‘pace’ and ‘momentum’ – top performers control a disproportionate share of the IP within their industry measured by the breadth and depth of impact of each key innovation.

  They all have strong processes, a clear mandate for those tasked with its creation and a focus on managing the return on every innovation.