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Environment
Innovation overrated
September 4, 2006
| A version of this story appeared in
Volume 84, Issue 36
Hooray to Madeleine Jacobs for raising the issue about protecting innovation by not eating our seed corn (C&EN, May 22, page 41). However, the problem is bigger than that. People put in charge of leading these "new" innovation efforts (we'll see how long these new ones last) are out in the ocean with no direction.
A 2005 survey of several hundred innovation or discovery managers at Fortune 1,000 companies found the following: 71% said they had no metrics to quantify their accomplishments, 60% said innovation is a key part of their job objectives, 67% said they could initiate new concepts for their company, 68% said their company had no well-defined innovation process, and 54% reported no working definition of innovation at their companies.
How long will this last before we say innovation's not such a bright idea anymore?
Jack Hipple
Tampa
CORRECTION
Aug. 21, page 27:
Errors were made in C&EN's recent story on chemical company sales and earnings. Lyondell's second-quarter sales increased 15.9% to $5.07 billion and first-half sales were up 11.5% to $9.83 billion. Its profit margin for the second quarter increased to 3.9% from 2.9% in second-quarter 2005. Profitability in the first half rose to 4.6% from 4.3%. Terra Industries' second-quarter sales were up 4.9% and its second-quarter 2005 profit margin was 4.1%. Total sales for the 24 companies rose 6.6% to $50.1 billion in the second quarter and 5.5% in the first half to $98.2 billion. Second-quarter 2006 profitability declined to 7.9% from 8.3% a year earlier, while profitability for the first half fell to 8.0% from 8.5%. The article posted on C&EN Online (www.cen-online.org) has been corrected.
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