â–¶ ROI = Return on Innovation: BusinessWeek, in conjunction with Boston Consulting Group, recently released its annual “Most Innovative Companies” rankings, revealing that the global economic downturn has introduced shifting perceptions of innovation’s role in business strategies.
The study, in which global corporate leaders across all industries were polled on their innovation investments, revealed the following findings:
• 64% of respondents said innovation was one of their top three strategic priorities, down 3% over 2008’s survey;
• 58% said their companies will increase innovation spending in the coming year, down from 63% in 2008;
• 14% said their companies would cut back on innovation spending;
• Respondents said they were putting a bigger emphasis on making minor changes to existing products and reducing production costs than in the previous two years; and,
• 59% of overall, global respondents said they are satisfied with the financial return on their companies’ investments in innovation, up from 43% in 2008; however, at 42%, North American company leaders were the group least satisfied with their innovation ROI.
Accordingly, the survey identified the following top 10 list of the 2009 “Most Innovative Companies:”
1. Apple
2. Google
3. Toyota Motor
4. Microsoft
5. Nintendo
6. IBM
7. Hewlett-Packard
8. Research in Motion
9. Nokia
10. Wal-Mart Stores
Source: BusinessWeek and BCG
â–¶ Using Social Media to Grow Businesses: A social media marketing industry report released by WhitePaperSource’s Michael Stelzner, titled “How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses” and sponsored by the Social Media Success Summit 2009, offers these insights into business development in a 2.0 world:
• The top three questions marketers want answered in terms of social media: What are the best tactics to use? How do I measure the effectiveness of social media? Where do I start?
• Marketers are relatively new to social media: 88% of surveyed marketers are using social media to market their businesses, but 72% have only been doing so for a few months or less.
• Time commitment: 64% use social media for 5-plus hours weekly and 39% use it for 10-plus hours weekly. Business owners were more likely to use social media marketing (90%) than employees working for a business (81%). At least two in three participants found that increased traffic occurred with as little as six hours a week invested in social media marketing.
• Top benefits of social media: The No. 1 advantage cited was generating exposure for their business (81%), followed by increasing traffic (61%) and building new business partnerships (56%).
• Top tools: Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook were the top four social media tools used by marketers, in that order. Specifically, Twitter is used by 94% of marketers who’ve been using social media for years, followed closely by blogs (90%).
• Learning curve: When asked what social media tools they are most interested in learning more about, 58% said bookmarking sites such as Delicious. In this vein, 61% of those investing more than 20 hours per week in social media marketing are using social bookmarking sites.
Source: Michael Stelzner
â–¶ The Perks of Being an Intern: A national study, developed by The Creative Group and based on the responses of approximately 250 advertising and marketing executives, identified the main benefits for students who participate in internships. The executives were asked, “Aside from pay, what do you think is the greatest benefit to students or graduates who participate in an internship program?” Their responses:
• Experiencing different work environments: 31%
• Improving soft skills: 24%
• Acquiring technical skills or knowledge: 22%
• Making industry contacts: 12%
• Learning about office politics and workplace issues: 9%
Source: The Creative Group