Take just one minute, and think about a few big companies you can name off the tip of your tongue. Now if you had to think about one thing that all of them had in common, what would it be? Great Leadership? Sure. Good work environment? Absolutely. But the most important attribute that a successful company has, is being able to think ahead. Being able to create a different vision in the business which could make a change to daily life. The most important tool that a company can use to accelerate its future progress, boils down to a simple tool: Research & Development.
R&D, incorporates into a company, an influx of knowledge and technology. These are two important tools that can be used to improve the companies future services in whatever field. R&D helps locate weaknesses of a business, and also helps find innovative ideas across various relevant spectrums, to ultimately provide a service that is different and effective enough to improve their business.
Let‘s take a look at some of the giants in their respective industries. You’ve got Google, arguably one of the biggest tech companies in the world. What core product is the foundation of their company? It’s a search engine. By initially investing a large amount of R&D, with time, Google has created one of the most well known tools on the internet. This product founded the basis of its company, brought in advertisement deals from other companies, and started making revenue for future R&D. This is the foundation on which subsidiary projects like Chrome and Gmail.
Knowledge is the most powerful tool a company can possess. Take a look at Tesla. Elon Musk’s ground-breaking advances in transportation has built the pathway for one of the only successful car start-ups. Even in industries like Banking, Leasing and Law, investment in labour and entrepreneurial capital, is what forms the very base for the success of the company.
Big companies aside,
how do small, start-up companies and medium sized companies set aside the resources for R&D. As explained in the book, ‘Science, Technology and Innovation: Implications for Growth’, governments are starting to set aside money for these companies in order to quicken growth.
Let’s even try to understand this from a macro point of view, R&D, in the industrial world, causes progress across all industries. An important improvement to a service discovered by a single industry, can benefit another industry. So even if you look at the big picture, R&D is pretty crucial to advancement of the functioning world in general.
Conclusively, companies can hire a billion employees to try to sell their product. But if their product isn’t good, its not selling.
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Resources
- Culture of Innovation: Tesla has triple the R&D of traditional automakers [Infographic]. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2017, from https://evannex.com/blogs/news/innovation-culture-tesla-r-d-spending-versus-other-automakers
- Dieter Bohn on May 29, 2015 at 12:15 p.m. (n.d.). Chasing the next billion with Sundar Pichai | Sundar’s Google: an exclusive look at the future of Google’s most important products. Retrieved September 27, 2017, from https://www.theverge.com/a/sundars-google/sundar-pichai-interview-google-io-2015
- Mourdoukoutas, P. (2011, October 14). Google’s Two Secrets of Success. Retrieved September 27, 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2011/10/13/googles-two-secrets-of-success/#b826756583d9
- The Importance Of R&D To Innovation. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2017, from http://www.incrementalinnovation.com/innovation-management-development/rd-to-innovation