2021 Holland Award: Long-Term R&D Strategy & Planning – The Paradox of Innovation

The future is impossible to predict with confidence. Companies are experiencing new stresses as they seek to make investments that will protect them from disruption and lead them to new opportunities and growth. This pressure is magnified for R&D which is responsible for allocating resources to future innovations and technology platforms that support future business growth. R&D teams must make investments in technology development for products that extend beyond the timeframes for which businesses have insights on where markets, customers and competitors will be. We will recap our work and insights found on the state of R&D planning for longer-term timeframes where insights regarding the future are limited.