Just started reading IBM's Global CEO Study 2006, Which is a compilation of information gathered through 765 in-depth interviews with CEOs around the world. Below are some of the excerpts from the same:

Fully 65 percent of chief executives and other leaders say they will have to make fundamental changes in their businesses over the next two years. New products and services remain a priority, but they're placing increasing emphasis on differentiating themselves through innovation in the basics of their business models. They believe that external collaboration across their business ecosystems will yield a multitude of innovative ideas.

Reevaluate your preconceptions about innovations: based on some of the following inputs:

- Business model innovation matters. Competitive pressures have pushed business model innovation much higher than expected on CEOs' priority lists.

- External collaboration is indispensable. CEOs stressed the overwhelming importance of collaborative innovation - particularly beyond company walls. Business partners and customers were cited as top sources of innovative ideas, while research and development (R&D) fell much lower on the list.

- Innovation requires orchestration from the top. CEOs acknowledged that they have primary responsibility for fostering innovation.

Considerations that can help organizations sharpen their own innovation agendas:

- Think broadly, act personally and manage the innovation mix - Create and manage a broad mix of innovation that emphasizes business model change.

- Make your business model deeply different - Find ways to substantially change how you add value in your current industry or in another.

- Ignite innovation through business and technology integration - Use technology as an innovation catalyst by combining it with business and market insights.

- Defy collaboration limits - Collaborate on a massive,geography-defying scale to open a world of possibilities.

- Force an outside look...every time - Push the organization to work with outsiders more, making it first systematic and, then, part of your culture.

Source: THE IBM GLOBAL CEO STUDY 2006

Prashanth Rai