54% of CEOs Dissatisfied With Innovation

athloi writes "Invention is new and clever; innovation is a process that takes knowledge and uses it to get a payback. Invention without a financial return is just an expense. Ideas are really the sexy part of innovation and there's rarely a shortage of them. If you look at the biggest problems around innovation, rarely does a lack of ideas come up as one of the top obstacles; instead, it's things like a risk-averse culture, overly lengthy development times and lack of coordination within the company. Not enough ideas, on the other hand, is an obstacle for only 17 percent. At the end of the day all that creativity and all those ideas have to show on the bottom line. The goal of innovation is to make or save money, and IT should never lose sight of that central fact."

RTFAd?

[roman_mir]

I know that reading TFA is not a prerequisite for commenting on stories on /., hell it is often regarded as being gay or some other form of highbrow elitism. Those who do it are regarded as know-it-all wise-asses who are flaunting it at the rest of unwashed /. crowds. Even among those who submit the stories and those who push them to the front pages it is now regarded fashionable not to read the text in the original articles but instead make wildly biased 'educated' guesses colored with personal preferences, while trying to describe to the rest of us what it is that the article is insinuating.

Having said all of the above, I actually RTFAd, so sue me.

The article mentions that 46% of the 2,468 senior executives surveyed worldwide said that they are satisfied with the return on their innovation spending. The rest are dissatisfied with the returns.

This has nothing to do with innovation itself, this has to do with the fact that often what is supposed to be innovation (something that is supposed to provide the company with better processes, systems, business and generate income or reduce spending) in reality does nothing of the kind. Often people push their ideas not because they want to innovate, but because they want to spend or they want to do something that is not profitable for the company but satisfies their own interests.

The article is about waste of money and it is not about CEOs who "don't like" innovations.

Move along, this is nothing else but the usual 'non-tech' CEO bashing. (Oh, I am not against bashing, but only when there is actually a good point to make. There is nothing of the kind here.)