Developing Innovation Benchmarks: An Empirical Study

Abstract

Benchmarking against industry averages or high performance organizations can be useful for most companies to improve products and processes, including strategic planning, forecasting marketing trends, and internal operation. Company innovation is also widely recognized as a critical process for company survival and growth. As business globalization and competition increase, company innovativeness has become essential for success. Analyses company innovativeness from a practical perspective, in terms of the activities and mechanisms necessary for companies to seek, evaluate, implement and foster the development of new ideas. The results provide strong empirical evidence that company innovation is a major determinant of company business performance. Because most benchmarking schemes are industry‐specific, focuses on the manufacturing industry. Provides a first attempt at developing an industry‐wide average for company innovativeness which business managers can use to gauge their company’s performance along the various activities required to innovate. Managers can then focus their attention on why their respective organizations vary from the industry averages regarding specific items.