Featured guest author Keith Duncan discusses six best practices of successful innovation and product portfolio management.

For over a decade, our sole focus has been to help our customers grow organically through the strategic use of innovation governance software solutions. Our track record of helping more than 200 of the world’s leading companies to adopt innovation and product portfolio management best-practices is unique; no other company in the world has helped implement innovation governance as often as we have. Along the way, we have learned a number of lessons with our customers about what works (and what does not) that we have incorporated into our software solutions, our implementation methodologies, and our roadmap for the future.

In an exclusive for inKNOWvations, Tina Cassler reviews a new study on top innovators and their success with new products.

A new study of innovation best practices shows that companies excelling at ideation and product development have significantly higher commercialization success rates for new-product projects. It found the proportion of projects entering development that become commercial successes was 32% higher for best-in-class innovators than for average performers. The study was conducted by the American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) in partnership with the Product Development Institute Inc. (PDI).  The research was based on input from 257 respondents, about half of whom came from the manufacturing sector.

The future holds good news for retailers both large and small: the product innovation game is changing. Tracking new product innovation from its development to eventual launch, there are now resources available that have the potential to change this entire process and evaluate its impact more precisely. Most retail executives and their manufacturer vendors would agree that until now there has been little emphasis or new solutions that help both parties achieve long-term innovation sustainability.