Thinkers 50 Innovation: Breakthrough Thinking to Take Your Business to the Next Level

CHAPTER4

Opening Up Innovation

Innovation was once safely corralled in the R&D department and kept in creative quarantine. And there it largely stayed throughout the twentieth century.

In the new century, this has been fundamentally changed. The change has been ignited by three realizations. First, pumping more money into R&D does not necessarily lead to more or better innovation—as many companies have discovered to their cost.

The challenges of R&D are well illustrated by the pharmaceutical industry. The pharma giants spend millions on drug development. The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, for example, estimates that the development costs for each drug hitting the market are a staggering $802 million.

But despite the massive amounts ...