2016 Global Innovation 1000
The world’s largest innovators are shifting the focus of their R&D investments from products to programming
By 2020, companies will have shifted the majority of their R&D spending away from product-based offerings to software and service offerings, according to the 2016 Global Innovation 1000 Study from Strategy&, PwC’s strategy consulting business. The need to stay competitive is the top reason why companies cited a shift in their R&D budgets towards software and services, and for good reason – according to the study, companies who reported faster revenue growth relative to key competitors allocated 25 percent more of their R&D budgets to software offerings than companies who reported slower revenue growth.
Key findings
- By 2018, the healthcare sector will surpass computing and electronics to become the largest R&D spending industry globally (US$165 billion v. US$159 billion), and the software and internet industry will leap ahead of the automotive sector (US$129 billion v. US$105 billion); Industrials rounds out the Top 5 R&D industries by spend.
- For the first time in the study’s history, the number of Global Innovation 1000 companies headquartered in the US grew, up 9.5% year over year.
- Volkswagen, Samsung, Amazon, Alphabet (Google) and Intel round out the Top 5 R&D Spenders, with Amazon and Google making bold moves up the list (+4 and +2 positions, respectively).
- Global innovation professionals responding to a 2016 survey have ranked Apple, Alphabet (Google), and 3M as the three Most Innovative Companies in the world.
- The 10 Most Innovative Companies continue to outperform the Top 10 R&D Spenders on key performance metrics, as has been the case for each of the past seven years.
To learn more about the 2016 Global Innovation 1000 Study, visit www.strategyand.pwc.com/innovation1000
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