{"id":1718,"date":"2012-04-06T03:39:01","date_gmt":"2012-04-06T09:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/corevalues.com\/?p=1718"},"modified":"2012-04-06T03:39:01","modified_gmt":"2012-04-06T09:39:01","slug":"why-is-the-bay-area-a-global-innovation-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/corevalues.com\/dev\/2012\/04\/06\/why-is-the-bay-area-a-global-innovation-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Is The Bay Area A Global Innovation Leader?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/corevalues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/iStock_000003086218Smal-Brilliant-innovations1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1617\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/corevalues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/iStock_000003086218Smal-Brilliant-innovations1-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>Copyright TIGERS Success Series<\/p>\n<p>By Dianne Crampton<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to innovation, the San Francisco Bay Area has unique assets that enable it to excel in the world economy. According to a new\u00a0 report released today by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute and\u00a0Booz &amp; Company, one of those assets is a distinct culture of innovation\u00a0 that can be found in many Bay Area companies.<\/p>\n<p>Why is this?<\/p>\n<p>The \u201csecret sauce\u201d these companies have combines an unusually high level\u00a0of alignment and integration among their corporate, innovation, and\u00a0\u00a0business strategies and goals. It blends in a strong focus on connecting\u00a0early and continuously with customers about their spoken and unspoken needs. It also engages chief technology officers directly in business strategy. This organizational culture combines with the region\u2019s venture\u00a0 capital firms, its world-class universities and research institutes, and\u00a0 an entrepreneurial workforce that is highly educated and embraces risk,\u00a0to drive innovation.<\/p>\n<p>The interesting thing about an entrepreneurial workforce that drives innovation is that the work enviornment supports\u00a0creativity, which includes time during the day to\u00a0let the mind wander and this supports breakthroughs. \u00a0The Bay Area community also supports innovation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany regions around the world have sought to re-create the Bay Area\u2019s\u00a0remarkable innovation ecosystem, which has produced technological and scientific advancements across an array of industries,\u201d said Sean Randolph, President of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. \u201cWhat\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 this report shows once again is that the region\u2019s reputation as a global hub for innovation stems not just from its institutions or the research\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 budgets of its companies. It comes from a deeply ingrained innovation\u00a0culture that permeates the business and research community, and can be\u00a0 found in many of its corporate suites. This continues to distinguish the\u00a0Bay Area from its competitors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The report \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bayareaeconomy.org\/files\/pdf\/CultureOfInnovationFullWeb.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">The\u00a0Culture of Innovation: What Makes San Francisco Bay Area Companies\u00a0Different?<\/a>\u201d offers important insights for companies, business\u00a0executives, and public policy leaders looking to jump-start new paths to economic development and faster growth. The report draws on the Booz &amp; Company 2011 Global Innovation 1000 survey. That survey annually looks\u00a0 at the world\u2019s top public companies in research and development spending\u00a0and analyzes how that spending influences their overall financial\u00a0 performance.\u00a0 Additionally, to better understand whether Bay Area\u00a0 companies were different (and if so, why), the Institute and Booz &amp;\u00a0Company performed a separate survey of Bay Area companies and conducted\u00a0 interviews with a number of corporate leaders, with the goal of\u00a0\u00a0 understanding the role of corporate culture in guiding innovation and financial performance.<\/p>\n<p>The key findings were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Almost 54 percent of Bay Area companies reported a high degree of\u00a0 alignment between their innovation strategy and business strategy.\u00a0\u00a0This is much higher than only 14.3 percent of companies globally.<\/li>\n<li>Forty-six percent of Bay Area companies indicated that their corporate\u00a0\u00a0culture strongly supports their innovation strategy (compared to only\u00a0 19.2 percent of companies globally).<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Bay Area companies are much more likely to have their technology\u00a0leaders report directly to the CEO than in other companies.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Ninety percent of Bay Area companies say they have a clear innovation\u00a0 strategy that is more strongly embraced by executive management than\u00a0 in other companies (compared to 1 in 5 companies globally saying they\u00a0 have no innovation strategy).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In particular, the most successful innovation companies \u2013 companies that\u00a0Booz &amp; Company characterizes as Need Seekers \u2013 place a heavy emphasis on\u00a0\u00a0gaining deep insight into their customers\u2019 needs and on using that insight to guide their technological and product development. Nearly half of the Bay Area companies surveyed are Need Seekers, compared with\u00a0 just 28 percent of all companies. Those Need Seeker companies are three times as likely as companies overall to say their innovation strategies support their business strategies and twice as likely to say their\u00a0 corporate culture supports their innovation strategy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is critical to recognize that a core element of Silicon Valley\u2019s success is greater systematic focus on understanding and addressing\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 customers\u2019 unstated needs and not just scientific or technical prowess,\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 noted Barry Jaruzelski, a senior partner at Booz &amp; Company and the lead\u00a0author of the firm\u2019s annual Global Innovation 1000 Study.<\/p>\n<p>This focus within Bay Area companies produces tangible results. Need Seeker companies outperform their industry peers in both profitability\u00a0and enterprise value.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCompanies and regions around the world have long sought to emulate the\u00a0 Bay Area\u2019s tremendous innovation success, but with only mixed results,\u201d\u00a0 said Matthew Le Merle, a Booz &amp; Company partner in San Francisco and\u00a0 trustee of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve found is\u00a0 that the Bay Area\u2019s innovation success stems not just from its access to\u00a0\u00a0venture capital, top universities, and well-educated workers, but from a\u00a0 unique and tightly woven set of corporate cultural attributes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Paying attention to culture and a work enviornment that sparks innovation while assessing customer needs is key to every business leader&#8217;s success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Copyright TIGERS Success Series By Dianne Crampton When it comes to innovation, the San Francisco Bay Area has unique assets that enable it to excel in the world economy. According to a new\u00a0 report released today by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute and\u00a0Booz &amp; Company, one of those assets is a distinct culture of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[300,309,372,301,340,99,374,272,26,184,329],"tags":[58,275,288,88,373],"class_list":["post-1718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agile-teams","category-entrepreneur-2","category-innovation","category-it","category-research","category-risk","category-success-2","category-team-cooperation","category-team-cultures","category-work-environment","category-workforce-planning","tag-business","tag-entrepreneur","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-innovation","tag-start-up"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/corevalues.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/corevalues.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/corevalues.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corevalues.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corevalues.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/corevalues.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/corevalues.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corevalues.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corevalues.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}