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The products varied enormously in their scale, function and degree of technology, from bread for a supermarket chain to a printer inside an automatic cash dispenser. Initially the organisers were concerned that this range could create difficulties in the assessment process. But this fear proved baseless, as most elements in the innovation process are shard by all manufacturers. Interestingly, the finalists broke down into two distinct and equal groups, large firms with 100 employees or more and small firms with 250 employees or fewer. With both groups the judges decided to concentrate on two of the clearest indicators of a successful innovation process, which are how well the new product is combined with the company's existing business, and secondly, how well the innovation methods are recorded and understood. Small firms naturally tend to do well in the first category since they have fewer layers of management and thus much shorter communication lines. But they seem to put less emphasis on creating formal development methods which would be repeatable in future innovations. |