In relation to talent, the report finds that 73 percent of companies expect talent to impact strongly upon an organisation’s ability to deliver its goals and objectives. Here, the majority of survey respondents (such as CEOs, CFOs and R&D Managers) expect budget increases. The dilemma that they face is not a lack of funds but how to select the appropriate people to deliver the objectives associated with the increased funding.
The difficulty with employee selection lies in the fact that R&D is very skills driven and competition for talent seems to be becoming fiercer. In relation to this, 50 percent of the executives surveyed indicated that availability of talent is the biggest factor is setting up innovation program in a country.
A second employee-factor is with gender and diversity. The report finds that 83 percent of innovation teams are majority male. With this in mind, most workplace reviews find that diversity helps businesses to innovate. Encouraging more women into R&D would widen the talent pool.
The report also looks at best practices for businesses to undertaken in the R&D space, especially when seeking to innovate business models. Here collaboration with partners is regarded as important by the 63 percent of firms rely on internal resources for their innovation. R&D is traditionally very secretive; however, collaborating can reduce costs and be useful for sharing insights and best practices.
Collaboration includes seeking opportunities abroad. The report finds that 45 percent of businesses innovate locally only. For these firms, it may be necessary to weigh up the benefits of setting up activity abroad.
One of the main issues raised by the report respondents was government -to -business disparity. While most governments are seeking to boost R&D spending, 83 percent of respondents are satisfied with their current levels of R&D. This signals that governments will need those in business to be striving for more in terms of research and innovations if this level of state-backed investment is to be realized.
