Forbes has put together a list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies and companies like Apple and Google came out on top. But what about Microsoft? Microsoft barely made the list by being the 86th Most Innovative Company. Ouch!
On the list, the top five were Salesforce.com, Amazon, Intuitive Surgical, Tencent Holdings, and rounding out the top five, Apple. Interestingly, Google is seventh most-innovative company in the world on Forbes’ list. Adobe came in 54th and chip-maker Qualcomm came in 61st. The most surprising is Microsoft, which came in as 86th.
Here is how Forbes came up with the list:
How do these companies exploit new ideas, products and services to produce dynamic and lucrative new businesses? Over the last eight years we studied the world’s most innovative companies. We discovered that particular skills separate business innovators like Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs and Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com from ordinary managers. These characteristics are not simply a genetic endowment of the lucky few. Anyone can change his behavior to improve creative impact and to weave the code for innovation into his or her company.
We call them the five skills of disruptive innovators:
1) Questioning allows innovators to challenge the status quo and consider new possibilities;
2) Observing helps innovators detect small details—in the activities of customers, suppliers and other companies—that suggest new ways of doing things
3) Networking permits innovators to gain radically different perspectives from individuals with diverse backgrounds;
4) Experimenting prompts innovators to relentlessly try out new experiences, take things apart and test new ideas;
5) Associational thinking—drawing connections among questions, problems or ideas from unrelated fields—is triggered by questioning, observing, networking and experimenting and is the catalyst for creative ideas.
Anyone surprised at Microsoft’s outcome in this list?
Further reading: Microsoft
