During a recent Sopheon Webinar broadcast, Phil Carlson, Vice-President for Business Development for Sopheon, shared a metrics-based business case model for senior executives, explaining the value to be gained from a structured approach to innovation.  Attendees learned how many of today's innovation leaders have invested in Sopheon's Accolade software solution to help them increase top-line growth and make bottom-line improvements.

Seventy-two percent of companies worldwide will increase spending on innovation in 2006, and 41 percent will increase spending significantly, according to a recent survey of senior management conducted by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

It's certainly not a new question. In fact, in a report issued earlier this year, senior analysts with the Battelle Institute point to the shift away from basic research to applied research in industry-based R&D organizations as a real threat to innovation. As reported in a related article on the subject, Battelle president and CEO Carl Kohrt offered this view: "R&D practices have been reduced to a commoditization of existing knowledge and technology through global collaboration."

In an effort to better the needs of our European constiuents, Sopheon has partnered with several leading organizations to sponsor executive seminars on best practices in lead product development.