SmartBiz IT Research Library

In the survey, IT and business executives cite varying interpretations of innovation. However, the common thread is that innovation is core to any good business strategy. Over half of the respondents define innovation as "creating new products and services," with an almost equal number describing it as "enhancing productivity." Other top definitions include "reducing cost" (43 percent), "driving revenue" (40 percent) and "market leadership" (40 percent). No matter how it's defined, innovation occurs over a broad spectrum, says Thomas Koulopoulos,founder of the Delphi Group, a strategic thought leadership and advisory firm, and executive director for the Center for Business Innovation at Babson College. He states that there are radical innovations representing entirely new concepts that change business in a monumental way; for example, the invention of the telephone. And then there are incremental innovations that introduce new facets to existing concepts, like the migration from dial-up Internet access to DSL.