Each quarter, we field a survey to better understand financial, staffing, and organizational issues related to corporate innovation efforts. The Tracking Data questions below will remain consistent each quarter to show trends; below that there are Peer Insights questions that will be different from quarter to quarter, providing advice on how corporate innovators are dealing with various challenges and pressures.
For Q1 2023, our Peer Insights question was: What are the most effective tactics for building strong relationships between innovation teams and business unit and functional colleagues? We invited respondents to choose three that they rely on most often.
Thanks to Planbox for their support of this research initiative. Planbox provides the most comprehensive AI-powered innovation management platform for building a sustainable culure of collaboration with your innovation ecosystem.
Q1 2023 Tracking Data
Among the respondents to our Q1 survey, there was a surprising amount of good news: one-third said that senior leadership support for innovation was increasing, and the same amount of respondents expect budgets to increase in the coming fiscal year. But nearly 25 percent of respondents said they were cutting back on their spending on outside consultants and contractors, and leadership support was eroding at 18 percent of our respondent companies.

Q1 2023 Peer Insights

A conversation began at InnoLead’s Impact conference last November about the tactics that help build strong relationships between the teams doing innovation and new product work, and their colleagues in business units and functional groups. At Impact, we collected suggestions of tactics from participants, and in the Q1 survey, we asked respondents to choose the three most effective from this list. Four tactics rose head and shoulders above the rest, including building strong personal relationships, and tying innovation work tightly to key strategic initiatives for the company.
Q1 2023 Industry Representation

If you’d like to participate in future surveys, make sure you’re receiving (and reading!) our twice-weekly email newsletter. Thanks to Planbox for their support of this research!