Top 5 R&D-Product Development Metrics

Organic R&D-Product Development, Open Innovation, Intellectual Property & CXO Corporate Metrics Practices, July 23, 2013, announced GGI’s 6th major industry research study since 1998. The 6th study had begun in September of 2012 and was subsequently concluded in September 2013, lasting approximately 13 months. Two-hundred North American companies participated in equal ratios to the relative R&D Spending of the USA, Canada, and Mexico. A sizable research effort, analysis and report writing took several months. On March 13, 2014, GGI issued a Business Wire Press Release to announce the 2014 Product Development Metrics Research.

Each GGI research effort has five focus areas. We try to get at what we see or know to be emerging trends to determine if they will become generally adopted, or if they will fizzle out. Advisors always wish to bring novelty and sizzle to their clients. GGI’s research gives us additional confidences, yea or nea.

The first four research areas explored changes to the environment and processes of organic R&D, open innovation, and intellectual property. Several of our thirty-one questions enabled five and ten year snapshots versus our prior research; and enabled comparisons of pre and post great recession practices. These four areas are not on the subject of Top 5 Industry R&D-Product Development Metrics. In short, innovation infrastructure is actively being built while the mix of corporate product portfolios clearly have less risk. Seemingly, corporate control from inception to launch has is probably best yet. There is little R&D sandbox left that is not overseen with some sort of milestones. New-To Innovation? IP is growing in personnel, but most infrastructure appears to be delivered by outside services. As well, integration with the general employee population seems slow compared to the continued growth in IP market dynamics.

The fifth and final research area has remained consistent for fifteen years now. GGI always studies industry usage of “Corporate R&D-Product Development Metrics.” What dashboard metrics are the top executives using these days, and what is changing over the past 5-10-15 years? This study researched 101 individual metrics. All 101 metrics are exclusively “overall performance metrics for R&D-Product Development as a whole,” the ones CEOs might wish to look at along with their VP R&D-Product Development. We had to limit the number to 101. Industry usage of known metrics, and now many permutations thereof, is exploding. Enabled by the computer age, many more metrics are possible and the cost per metric is lowering.

Leeland Teschler, Machine Design’s long-time Editor, excerpted a piece he entitled the State of R&D shortly after GGI’s research was published. It includes the Top 5 metrics.

Top 5 R&D-Product Development Metrics [Machine Design – May 8, 2014] breathes a bit more life into the nature of the Top 5 metrics, one of which didn’t exist thirty years ago.