Indian firms with advanced innovation practices grow almost 5 times faster than their industry average: Forrester

There is a direct correlation between being an innovator and market leadership, according to research released by Forrester today at its annual Digital Transformation & Innovation Forum in India.

Firms with advanced technology-driven innovation practices grow as much as five times faster than their industry average. This makes technology-driven innovation a huge opportunity for the bold and a big threat for every other business.

Based on a survey of 111 Indian firms with 1,000+ employees or more than US$75 million in annual revenue, growth is the top business priority as to why businesses focus on innovation efforts. However, innovation approaches that are incremental or consider technology as an afterthought do not create differentiation.

Most of today’s fastest growing firms use technology as an innovation driver, while not losing sight of their customers’ current and future needs. Forrester labels this approach technology-driven innovation, which is defined as:

Indian firms tend to be very much aware of the importance of technology to drive innovation. Research from Forrester indicates that sixty-two percent of firms invest in emerging technologies, such as machine learning and digital business platforms. These technologies are expected to create the most impact on their firms’ business over the next five to ten years.

“Indian firms have ridden the Digital Transformation bandwagon for a couple of years, but what’s next?” said Ashutosh Sharma, VP and research director, Forrester India. “Technology-driven innovation puts rapid technology experimentation at the forefront of your efforts; not last, after current customer and business needs are understood. It will let your firm ride waves of technology-fueled disruption to change the game and create lasting competitive advantage that translates to growth and market leadership.”

In addition, Forrester found that most innovation projects in India require firms to deal with a new technology that they do not currently have experience with. As many as three out of four Indian firms said that at a minimum twenty-five percent of their innovation projects require new technologies. It goes to as high as seventy-five percent for one out of eight firms.