July 01, 2008
Because of the escalating value of intangible assets to industrial organizations, active management of a company’s intellectual property has become an increasingly important responsibility of R&D...
Learning Center
IRI resources assist your day-to-day R&D functions and help in problem solving. Search by keyword, topic, or your R&D role to find tools to help you manage your organization's R&D and innovation process more effectively.
Strategic Planning
July 01, 2008
Competitor analysis is critical to strategy formulation and implementation. Firms are able to develop and deploy better strategies if their competitors’ responses can be analyzed or even predicted...
April 01, 2008
In the context of open innovation, firms increasingly acquire technologies from external sources. Moreover, many firms have recently started to actively commercialize technologies, for example, by...
January 01, 2008
Two separate but simultaneous transformations—one in science, one in business—affect our world and our fortunes today. I believe these ongoing shifts, largely underway by 1995, will irrevocably...
January 01, 2008
A long-term perspective on R&D at the Dutch chemical company DSM illuminates two crucial and interrelated challenges in the management of R&D. On the one hand, companies must keep their...
January 01, 2008
Managers in R&D need to take a more active role in helping their corporations to find new market applications and develop business plans for realizing value from those applications. Often it is...
January 01, 2008
More than ever, a business today requires innovation to achieve and sustain strong economic performance. At Deere & Company, effective innovation depends on four key pillars: a sustained...
September 01, 2009
Technology managers have a wide range of methods and tools at their disposal for deciding whether to invest in early-stage technologies. However, these techniques are mostly focused on quantitative...
September 01, 2009
A mathematical model of the business system that links innovation of products and services to financial growth represents both investment and revenue as a series of overlapping waves, thus more...
July 01, 2009
Since its origins in Motorola in the 1970s ( 1 ), technology roadmapping has been adopted widely by many organizations in different sectors around the world. The underlying concept is very flexible,...
May 01, 2009
R&D at NASA, NSF, NIH, and DOE has fared very well in the new U.S. administration’s stimulus plan. But what role does R&D really play during a financial crisis? Where does it fall on the list...
March 29, 2016
In 10 Rules for Strategic Innovators, Vijay Govindarajan and co-author Chris Trimble discuss what it takes to innovate inside established companies. He emphasizes three concepts: forgetting lessons...
May 01, 2010
High unemployment and low housing prices, exploding deficits and rising debt, plus gridlock in the U.S. Congress and financial instability do not bode well for lasting economic recovery in the near...
May 01, 2010
Making the connection between innovation and strategy is among the most challenging aspects of managing a technology organization. Perhaps this is because making it work is so particular to the...
May 01, 2010
How to achieve a sustained competitive advantage that ensures long-term survival is a major concern for managers everywhere, but even more so for those in smaller firms, which may have more...
May 01, 2010
Many companies lack a clearly articulated and well-communicated product innovation and technology strategy. Such a strategy is essential and is strongly linked to positive performance in product...