Most Innovative Companies 2023

Reaching New Heights
in Uncertain Times
May 2023

Contents
01	The Formula for Innovation from14	How Early Winners Are

Leading Companies

Unlocking AI’s Potential• What Winners Are Doing• From Implementation to Impact• Bosch: A Culture of Innovation• H&M: Leveraging AI and Human Input
for Amplified Intelligence• The 50 Most Innovative Companiesof 2023• Innovation and Performance• Samsung: Leading theCommercialization of Consumer Tech

• Four Impact Success Factors• Moderna: Pioneering AI-Driven
Innovation in the Fight Against Cancer

19	Methodology
07	A Downturn Ups the Stakes inInnovation• A New Outlook?

24	About the Authors• Investing with Focus• McDonald’s: Driving Growth with
Digital Innovation• Good Advice (Updated) Stands
the Test of Time

25	Acknowledgments

The Formula for Innovation from
Leading Companies
By Justin Manly, Michael Ringel, Amy MacDougall, Will Cornock, Johann Harnoss, Konstantinos Apostolatos,
Ramón Baeza, Ryoji Kimura, Michael Ward, Beth Viner, and Jean-Manuel IzaretFor the third straight year, the evidence is mounting:companies that both prioritize innovation and makesure that they are ready to act are widening the gap
over less capable competitors. The leaders at these firms
are consistently delivering new products, entering newmarkets, and establishing new revenue streams. The
laggards struggle to make headway beyond incremental
improvements.
This year, the findings from our global innovation survey
dovetail with other new BCG research showing that companies built for the future share a common set of attributes
that enable them to exhibit superior performance, be more
resilient to shocks and disruptions, and exploit innovation
faster for value-creating growth. In addition to people andtechnology capabilities (including, importantly, AI), one ofthese attributes is an innovation-driven culture.

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP

In this year’s Most Innovative Companies report, we
examine what innovation-ready leaders (those that are readyto develop product, process, and business model innovations
that can deliver sustainable impact) are doing to pull ahead
and how innovation is building their resilience to economic
uncertainty and fueling their pursuit of lower emissions. In“A Downturn Ups the Stakes in Innovation,” we explore how apotential downturn in 2023 is evoking a much different
response than did the 2009 financial crisis, especially amongleading firms. In “How Early Winners Are Unlocking AI’s
Potential,” we dig into the critical role of artificial intelligence(AI) in innovation as in many other areas of business today.

1What Winners Are Doing

ambitions. Last year, we examined companies’ readiness in thecontext of climate and sustainability (C&S), which two-thirds ofcompanies ranked as a top corporate priority. Only about one
in five companies was ready to take effective action.

Despite global economic uncertainty, innovation rose as a top
corporate priority in 2023, with 79% of companies ranking it
among their top three goals. (See Exhibit 1.) This is up from
75% in 2022 and close to 2019’s high of 82%. The top areas ofinnovation emphasis are new products and exploring adjacent business models. Cost is a key driver for 62% of respondents and a top reason for innovation. Companies remainbullish on their innovation prospects: 42% expect to significantly increase spending this year, a jump of 16 percentage
points over the last economic downturn in 2009.

This year, two out of three ready companies rank innovation as
their top priority, and 90% expect to increase spending—almost all by more than 10%. (See Exhibit 2.) Moreover, while
all companies on average expect to allocate more money
toward incremental innovations close to the core (an understandably conservative approach in uncertain times), readycompanies are allocating fully one-third of spending toward
developing breakthrough innovations. Expanding into adjacentbusiness models is also a priority in 2023. And 89% of readycompanies prioritize C&S compared with 58% of all companies.

These are impressive figures, especially in the current macroeconomic and geopolitical environment. But there is also an emerging group of companies that is going much further and putting
innovation front and center in their future growth strategies.

Ready companies use a wide array of strategic tools tostrengthen their innovation platforms and practices. They
access capabilities and expertise from outside their own walls,
and they have systems in place to leverage these tools forvalue. These companies are much more aggressive in theiruse of M&A, for example, targeting innovative technologies orprocesses or acquiring leaders and employees with a demonstrated ability to innovate. They are also more likely to involve
innovation experts in target analysis and selection.

Two years ago, as the world began to emerge from thepandemic, we observed that successful innovation takes three
things: making innovation a priority, committing investment
and talent to it, and being ready to transform investment into
results. We found that only about one company in four was“innovation ready”—that is, it met all three criteria, particularly possessing the elements of leadership and teaming thatenable effective execution of a company’s innovation

Exhibit 1 - Nearly 80% of Respondents Named Innovation as a the Top-Three
Priority, While Two-Thirds of Ready Companies Ranked It as Top Priority

Where does innovation, R&D, and product development rank among yourcompany’s priorities? (%)

66

72

66

66

64

71

32
47

43

43

39

23

23

25

40
19

45

26

76

77

75

79

76

77

Respondents who cite innovation,
R&D, and product development as
their company’s top priority (%)
35

82

75

75

42

42

79

65
52

24

53

24

53

22

57

22

53

23

47

47

46

42

30

35

23

65

33

33

33

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Top 3 Priority

30

Unready

Ready

Top Priority

Sources: BCG Global Innovation Survey 2023; BCG analysis.
Note: n = 1,023 for global respondents. No data for 2011 and 2017 available. Totals may not sum due to rounding. “Ready” companies are those thatare ready to develop product, process, and business model innovations that can deliver sustainable impact.

2

MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES 2023

Exhibit 2 - Nearly 90% of Ready Companies Plan to Increase Innovation
Spending
How will your company's innovation, R&D, and product development spending change this year in response to
macroeconomic factors? (%)

32

30
26

23
16

22
15

11

10

7

6
Increaseby >30%3
Increase by
21% to 30%

Increase by
11% to 20%

Increase slightly(5% to 10%)

Increase
Ready

No change(<5% change)

Decrease

No Change

Decrease

Unready

Sources: BCG Global Innovation Survey 2023; BCG analysis.
Note: n = 1,023 for global respondents. Totals may not sum due to rounding. “Ready” companies are those that are ready to develop product,
process, and business model innovations that can deliver sustainable impact.

For similar reasons, they also are more likely to orchestrate orparticipate in ecosystems, engaging with external partners,
even competitors, on innovations. They determine what theyneed, whether it’s technology, data, or something else, andthen work out the most effective way to access it.
They drive digital innovation with a clear bias towards new
digital products, agile teaming, and improving customer andmarketing insights. They regularly review the performance ofinnovation units or vehicles (such as venture capital funds,
accelerators, incubators, and R&D) and shift resources toward
centers of success. And they understand that effective portfolio
governance and management, especially with respect to datatransparency, are key to driving impact.

Bosch: A Culture of Innovation

strategy is its centralized Bosch Research unit. With 1,800
highly specialized employees, this unit generates about aquarter of all Bosch patents. Bosch Research focuses on
enabling technologies that can be applied across The BoschGroup, such as AIoT, which combines AI and the Internet ofThings, to move from fundamental research to actual
product innovation and large-scale commercialization.
Bosch builds on a broad ecosystem of internal business
units and external partners to generate innovation ideas.
While three-quarters of R&D spending has been devoted tothe company’s Mobility Solutions business and topics suchas electrification, driver assistance systems, semiconductors,
and sensors, Bosch supplements internal R&D investmentswith targeted acquisitions to support high-priority areas, suchas its automated driving product portfolio.

The Bosch Group (number 37 on the 2023 Most Innovative
Companies list) states in its annual report that “the basis
for the company’s future growth is its innovative strength.”
While Bosch has a special ownership structure thatfacilitates long-term planning and up-front investments,
it is a strong culture of innovation that underpins.

In 2022 alone, the company made three investments toacquire IP for the next generation of mobility, consistent
with its goal of making Bosch a one-stop shop for “all thenecessary building blocks of automated driving—from
actuators and sensors to software and maps,” according toMathias Pillin, president of the Cross-Domain Computing
Solutions division.

Bosch has a global R&D organization of about 84,800
employees, 44,000 of whom are software developers, in 130
locations. From 2018 through 2021, the company has
maintained steady R&D spending as share of sales at
between 7.6% and 8.2%. A core pillar of Bosch’s innovation

For example, Bosch’s Semiconductor Ideas to the Market
team specializes in high-frequency-processing “System-onChips” used in control units for the automotive industry. Its
FiveAI unit provides a modular cloud platform designed forbuilding software components and development platforms

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP

3

for safe automated driving systems, particularly supporting
solutions used in complex urban environments. “We want
Five to give an extra boost to our work in software development for safe automated driving,” said Markus Heyn,
member of the Bosch board of management and chairman of the Mobility Solutions business. Bosch’s Atlatec
team, meanwhile, creates high-resolution digital maps thatare critical to automated driving functionality.

The 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2023
The 50 most innovative companies for 2023 are ageographically diverse group, roughly evenly split between
North America and the rest of the world. Europe and Asia
are well represented, and the Middle East joins the list for
the first time with Saudi Aramco at number 41. (See Exhibit 3.)
Auto companies held multiple positions in the 2022 list;
international energy companies hold five spots this year.
This may be a sign of respondents’ concerns over climatechange and the fact that they are looking to the energy industry to be a large and creative part of the solution. In spite of themarket headwinds that they experienced in 2022, tech companies continue to dominate the top 50, including the top ten.
The big story, though—this year and for most of the past
decade—is the ability of innovation to drive performance.
Since 2005, our portfolio of the 50 most innovative
companies has outpaced the broader market in shareholder returns by a significant margin—an average of 3.3
percentage points per year. (See Exhibit 4.)

Innovation and Performance
The consistent outperformance of BCG’s most innovative
companies compared with the broader market is one
indication of the correlation between superior innovation
capabilities and performance. There are others.
New BCG research into the shifting drivers of performanceand sustainable competitive advantage show that theability to innovate consistently over time is fast rising inimportance. Traditional markets have plateaued, andgrowth, which accounts for 60% to 70% of shareholder
returns in the medium term, is found primarily in newmarkets, including those created by technology disruption,such as e-commerce, streaming media, cloud-based interactions, mobility solutions, and smart energy solutions. A
small number of companies that have embedded thecapabilities that enable them to exploit innovation forvalue-creating growth are widening the performance gap
with their competitors and generating shareholder returns
almost three times greater than those of the S&P 1200.

4

These new bases of advantage are rooted in superior capabilities, especially those related to digital, AI, and innovation.
These capabilities are more difficult to establish but much
more enduring for two reasons. First, technology is evolving
rapidly, and proficiency in a technology today, such as
AI, means that as the technology grows more powerful,
a company can be faster at deploying it. Second, companies that have these capabilities benefit from a flywheel
effect: they can invent, deploy, adapt, and reinvent more
quickly and with greater impact than their competitorscan. They also get better at co-creating with customers
and ecosystem partners and at democratizing the use ofdata throughout their organization.

Samsung: Leading the Commercialization ofConsumer Tech
Consumer electronics giant Samsung is an example of acompany that uses all the tools available to drive performance by innovating at multiple stages of the value chain.
Samsung regularly brings new technology to the mass
market through a focus on component-level technology
innovations and advances in scaled manufacturing. Over theyears, as its core products and markets (such as smartphones and TVs) have matured, Samsung, known for its
dizzying array of products, has proved adept at pushing into
adjacent markets and developing new business models.
Samsung innovates along two dimensions: componentlevel advances (improving existing technologies with innovations, such as foldable phones), and adoption (increasing
accessibility to products through mass production, lower
costs, and technological advancements). The company is a
global innovation leader across R&D, patents, and innovation vehicles such as labs and incubators. It invests heavily
in R&D, spending more than $17 billion (9% of sales) in
2021 alone, making it the largest non-US R&D spender.
Boasting about 10,000 researchers and developers dedicated to the development of future tech, the company has
developed a robust patent portfolio: it was granted 6,300
patents in 2022, the most in the US.
As Samsung has developed new products and sought out
new markets, it has moved from displays and electronic
components into robotics, smart home products, connectedcars, medical equipment, virtual assistants, and 5G
connectivity. The company has captured significant sharesof the global market for smartphones, QLED TVs, andIoT products.

T

he connection between innovation and both growth
and advantage is becoming stronger than ever. Winners
understand this and invest in their innovation engines
accordingly. They will continue to widen their lead overothers until the laggards reset their own priorities andinvestments for the future.

MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES 2023

Exhibit 3

The 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2023

Ranking

1–10

2 Tesla (+3) 3 Amazon

4 Alphabet 5 Microsoft 6 Moderna 7 Samsung
(-1)
(+1)
(-3)

8 Huawei

9 BYD
Company

10 Siemens(+10)

11–20 Pﬁzer (+7)

J&J (+15)

SpaceX

Nvidia (+1) ExxonMobil

Meta (-5)

Nike (-5)

IBM (-8)

3M (+18)

Tata Group

21–30

Oracle (-3)

BioNTech

SchneiderElectric

P&G (+8)

Nestlé (+22)

Sinopec

Hitachi (+6) McDonald's

1 AppleRoche

31–40 Sony (-22)
Saudi

41–50 Aramco

Coca-Cola Mercedes(-6)
Benz Group1

Shell

Alibaba(-22)

GeneralXiaomi (+2) HoneywellElectric (+1)

Merck

ByteDance Bosch (-11)

Dell (-24)

Glencore

StripeWalmart(-32)

PetroChina

Lenovo (-24)

BMW

Unileverxxx - ReturneeNTTxxx - New entrant

Sources: BCG Global Innovation Survey 2023; BCG analysis.
Note: +/- indicates change from 2022 MIC ranking.
Mercedes-Benz Group was previously identified as Daimler.

1

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP

5

Exhibit 4

Innovators Create Value

Total shareholder return2005 = index 100

482

+3.3

percentage
pointsAnnual TSR

287

100
2004

2007

2010

2013
BCG MIC 50

2016

2019

2022

MSCI World Index

Sources: BCG Innovation Journey Analytics Database; CapitalIQ.
Note: Total shareholder return (TSR) performance of publicly listed MIC top 50 companies. Chart compares their one-year TSR performance forthat year against global performance index (MSCI World). We reweight the MIC 50 basket annually to reflect changes to the list. BCG MIC 50 has
outperformed the index in 12 of 17 years.

6

MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES 2023

A Downturn Ups the Stakes inInnovation
By Justin Manly, Michael Ringel, Amy MacDougall, Will Cornock, Johann Harnoss, Konstantinos Apostolatos,
Ramón Baeza, Ryoji Kimura, Michael Ward, Beth Viner, and Jean-Manuel IzaretF

rom an innovation perspective, this downturn (if it
occurs) looks to be very different from others. During
the last recession, in 2009, companies reined inspending. The innovation plans we reported on in thatyear’s Most Innovative Companies report reflected thatbelt tightening. Less than two-thirds of companies ranked
innovation as a top-three priority that year, and only 58%
planned to increase spending. Nearly 15% expected to cut
innovation investment. This year, by contrast, 79% of companies see innovation as a top-three priority—15 points
more than in 2009—and 66% plan to increase spending,
42% by more than 10%. (See Exhibit 5.)

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP

A New Outlook?
What’s going on in 2023? For one thing, as growth has
slowed in core markets, the importance of being able toinnovate new products and services that carry companies
into new markets with new business models has increased.
We reported in 2021 that most companies are at least
gradually or partially altering their core business models,with digital opportunities and the sustainability imperative
as two key forces driving the change. This dynamic
continues today.
More companies are building adjacent and newfrontier business models to serve as growth engines. Many
firms are also planning to increase their spending on suchtools as M&A, innovation labs, and open innovation ecosystems, despite the possible downturn. (See Exhibit 6.)

7

Exhibit 5 - Innovation Priority and Spending Plans Are Much Stronger in
2023 Than They Were in 2009
Where does innovation, R&D, and product development rank
among your company’s priorities? (%)

100
80

18

40

+8pp

25

20

33

2009
Top priority

20

60

46

39

20

6
7

28

+15pp

40

5
9

80

26

60

0

100

3

10

How will your company's innovation, R&D, and productdevelopment spending change this year in response to
macroeconomic factors? (%)

2023
Top 3

Top 10Not on the list

0

24
32

+16pp

26
2009

42

2023

Increase signiﬁcantly (>10%)

Decrease slightly (-1% to -10%)

Increase slightly (1% to 10%)Decrease signiﬁcantly (> -10%)

Stay roughly the same

Sources: BCG Global Innovation Survey 2023; BCG analysis.
Note: n = 1,023 for global respondents. pp = percentage points.

Companies are raising their commitment to innovation,although many are not improving their capabilities as fast as
they would like. Last year, for example, nearly 80% (39) of
BCG’s 50 most innovative companies ranked among the top
climate and sustainability (C&S) innovators, according to
global peer votes. Fully 60% of high-emitting companies weretargeting deep-tech innovation, and deep tech was thenumber one or number two innovation focus for those firms.
In addition, many more committed C&S innovators areleveraging external innovation vehicles that are typically used
for longer term or more technologically advanced solutions.
Separate BCG research has shown that a group of companies
representing about 25% of the S&P 1200 have put in place
the capabilities that enable them to pivot from shoring up thedigital basics of their value chains to focusing on growth frominnovation. Some are on the leading edge of disruption in
their sectors and demonstrating considerable resilience in theface of uncertainty. These companies are delivering impressive results, far outpacing their peers on such key metrics asshareholder returns and revenue and earnings growth.

8In addition, the old adage about downturns separating
winners and losers may be gaining real traction this timearound. Top performers realize that playing a game of wait
and see can easily backfire in unstable times, as it gives
forward-looking competitors more time to position themselves to win. For example, leaders know that building
medium- to long-term resilience requires ongoing focus on
C&S: 89% of innovation leaders cite it as a top-three priority, and 49% of all companies have confidence in their C&S
investment decisions (up from just 23% last year). Among
those prioritizing C&S, average “C&S readiness” increased
to 37% in 2023 from 28% in 2022, based on BCG’s innovation to impact (i2i) parameters.

MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES 2023

Exhibit 6

Companies Expect to Increase Spending On Key
Innovation Enablers, Even in the Face of a Downturn

How do you anticipate the use of innovation vehicles to change in response to macroeconomic factors such as a potential
downturn, inﬂation, or uncertainty? (%)

19

14

13

15

46

53

55

52

35

33

32

33

M&A

Digital andinnovation lab

Open innovation
ecosystem

R&D
labs

Increase spending

Maintain spending

15

22

18

55

60

26

23

22

Accelerator

CVC fundIncubator

58

Decrease spending

Sources: BCG Global Innovation Survey 2023; BCG analysis.
Note: n = 1,023 for global respondents.

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP

9

Investing with Focus

Microsoft (which has ranked among the top five innovative
companies since the first edition of this report in 2005) is famous
for using M&A as well as partnerships and alliances to fill strategic needs that further its innovation agenda. The most recent
example is the company’s investments in OpenAI and theintegration of ChatGPT into multiple Microsoft product offerings.

This year’s survey found a significant percentage of companies
that are not only prioritizing innovation but investing in it. They
are also focusing their investments for greater impact andmanaging their portfolios for improved results, perhaps directly
in response to economic uncertainty or the prospect of turmoil.
They understand that innovation leads to advantage, or as Eric
Schmidt, former chairman and CEO of Google, recently
observed in Foreign Affairs, “The main reason innovation now
lends such a massive advantage is that it begets more innovation.”

Another example is Siemens (number 10 this year and in the top
50 for 13 of the previous 16 years), which uses M&A in various
ways. In 2018, it spun off 25% of its Siemens Healthineers medical device business to spur entrepreneurial independence.
Siemens Healthineers has taken advantage of the flexibility to
pursue big bets in health care, continuing through the pandemic.
In August 2020, it announced the acquisition of longtime partner
Varian Medical Systems for $16.4 billion. The Varian acquisition
positioned Siemens Healthineers as the player with the mostcomprehensive integrated cancer care portfolio, across screening,
diagnostics, and treatment. It has allowed the company torealize innovation synergies, combining Siemens’ imaging technology with Varian’s therapeutic technology and AI to enhanceexisting products and create new ones. For example, Siemens
Healthineers’ new radiotherapy product combines imaging
capability with AI to do rapid assessments and real-time optimization of treatment while patients are receiving therapy.

Innovating through uncertainty requires tough prioritization
around portfolio management, rigorous governance, investment
in M&A opportunities, and the continuous building of talent andinternal capabilities. In practice, this means companies should
focus on five things.
M&A. Leaders look to acquire missing technologies, capabilities,
and talent. Our research found that innovation-ready companies(those that are ready to develop product, process, and businessmodel innovations that can deliver sustainable impact) use awide array of strategic tools to strengthen their platforms andpractices. They are much more aggressive in their use of M&A tofurther objectives by accessing new technologies and processesor acquiring leaders and employees with a demonstrated ability
to innovate. (See Exhibit 7.) They are also more likely to involve
innovation experts in target analysis and selection.

Exhibit 7 - Companies Use M&A to Access Innovative Technologies andProcesses, and They Involve Innovation Experts in Target Selection
What role do M&As play in your company's innovation strategy during times of downturn,inﬂation, or uncertainty (select one)? (%)

+3

+23
-20
-14

33

+7

36

32
10

9
Acquire innovativetechnologies orprocesses

Include innovation
experts in our target
screening and due
diligence process

8

Acquire leadersand employees withdemonstrated ability
to innovate

All companies

26

22

17

M&A does notplay a signiﬁcant role

6
Access to new markets

Ready companies

Sources: BCG Global Innovation Survey 2023; BCG analysis.
Note: n = 1,023 for global respondents. ”Ready” companies are those that are ready to develop product, process, and business model innovations
that can deliver sustainable impact.

10

MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES 2023

Exhibit 8 - Ready Companies Lean Away from the Core Toward
Breakthrough Innovations
Ready companies

All companies
100%

47

30
23

41
32
28

Past year (2022)

49

45

29

29

22

26

38
32
30

Expected allocation in
uncertainty/downturn

33

35

33

32

31

31

35

34

36

Past year (2022)

Expected allocation in
uncertainty/downturnDistance from core:

Near-in/extension

New to company (adjacencies)

New to world (breakthrough)Level of advantage:

Near-in/sustaining

Incremental

Distruptive

Source: BCG Global Innovation Survey 2023; BCG analysis.
Note: n = 1,023 for global respondents. Totals may not sum due to rounding. “Ready” companies are those that are ready to develop product,
process, and business model innovations that can deliver sustainable impact.

Portfolio Prioritization. Innovation-ready companies
emphasize breakthrough or disruptive innovations, while lesssophisticated innovators allocate resources more heavily to“near-in” or sustaining innovation. Significant percentages of
all the companies in our 2023 survey are increasing theirfocus on digital product innovation (34%), adjacent new
business models (30%), lowering costs (23%), and new ways ofworking (30%). Innovation-ready companies are shifting their
allocation of resources away from incremental innovations
that sustain current positions or advantages toward breakthrough or disruptive innovations that create new markets orrevenue streams. (See Exhibit 8.) In the event of a downturn,ready companies expect to allocate 50% more investment
toward breakthrough innovations (34% versus 22% for othercompanies) and almost that much more toward disruptive
innovations (36% versus 26%). Ready companies are planning
to increase downturn spending in both areas while others
tread water or retrench.

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP

Portfolio Management. Embedding effective portfolio
management and governance helps ensure ROI. The availability of end-to-end tracking tools for innovation portfolios actually
declined from 2022 to 2023, and only 38% of companies
report a strong reliance on metrics to inform decision making
and governance. Less than a quarter of survey respondents
said they have successfully implemented clear KPI and decision-making criteria to make portfolio decisions, and only 23%
use stage-gate processes with clearly defined decision criteria,
reporting requirements, and performance metrics. By
contrast, almost all innovation-ready companies employ
end-to-end tracking to assess progress and make informed
decisions about an initiative’s value. (See Exhibit 9.)
Overall revenue growth and customer satisfaction remain
the top metrics for innovation success, used by 41% and
35% of companies, respectively. These are the same metrics, used by roughly similar percentage of companies, as
we recorded during the last recession in 2009. Impact onenvironmental, social, and governance goals jumped into
the top-five success metrics tracked this year and is themost common among ready companies.

11

Exhibit 9 - Nearly All Ready Companies Have Implemented End-to-End
Portfolio Tracking
Have you implemented a holistic view of the portfoliowith end-to-end tracking available centrally as a sourceof truth to guide portfolio decisions? (%)

What metrics does your company use in innovation, R&D,
and product development (select up to three)? (%)

41

Overall revenue growth33
35

Customer satisfaction

94
Impact on ESG goals

43

42

Return on innovation spending

14
Implemented

Implemented
with impact1

Margin accretion

All companies

38
26
43
26
23
22
25

Ready companies

Sources: BCG Global Innovation Survey 2023; BCG analysis.
Note: n = 1,023 for global respondents. “Ready” companies are those that are ready to develop product, process, and business model innovations
that can deliver sustainable impact.
1“Implemented with impact” includes the subset of companies implementing portfolio transparency that also saw impact from those efforts.

Data, Targets, and Collaboration. Ready companies
emphasize use of fundamental tools and ensure greater
data transparency, clearer portfolio targets, and morecollaboration. Three-quarters have full data transparency
to support decision making, compared with only 35% of
not-ready companies. Almost 60% have clear portfolio
targets, and more than half use regular portfolio meetings
to assess process. (See Exhibit 10.)
Innovation-Focused Talent and Culture. For many
“almost ready” companies, talent and culture is the dimension holding them back from realizing the full potential of
their innovation function. In fact, companies that arealmost ready (according to BCG’s i2i assessment) lag readycompanies more on talent and culture than on any otherdimension. Ready companies focus on an innovationfocused culture and talent pipeline. They are three to fourtimes as likely as their almost-ready counterparts to havesuccessfully implemented a strong innovation-focusedrecruiting and talent acquisition foundation across allstages of the talent pipeline. And, as we will see in “How
Early Winners Are Unlocking AI’s Potential,” the third
article in this year’s report, companies that realize impact
from AI have more than three times as many people
dedicated to innovation as those who don’t.

12

The war for talent is a perennial issue. The job market isstill strong, but it has softened in many parts of the world,
meaning it may be easier now to build or strengtheninternal teams. The same conditions that provide
opportunities for M&A also offer the opportunity toacquire qualified, innovation-focused talent.

McDonald’s: Driving Growth with Digital
Innovation
Consider the case of McDonald’s (number 34 on the 2023
top 50 list), a restaurant industry frontrunner in technology
innovation and investment, which has combined many ofthese practices to bolster its leading position in the industry. McDonald’s spends heavily on innovation throughpartnerships, labs, digital tools, and acquisitions. It wasinvesting in AI (through M&A) as early as 2019 when it
acquired Apprente, which develops voice-based, conversational technology, and personalization startup Dynamic
Yield to better customize the drive-through experience.

MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES 2023

Exhibit 10 - Ready Companies Rely on Full Data Transparency, Clear
Portfolio Targets, and Regular Portfolio Meetings
How do you support eﬀective decision making on your innovation portfolio? (%)

+37

+20

72

58
35

Full data transparency

+13

38

Clear portfolio targets
Ready companies

51

38

Regular portfolio meetings

Unready companies

Sources: BCG Global Innovation Survey 2023; BCG analysis.
Note: n = 1,023 for global respondents. “Ready” companies are those that are ready to develop product, process, and business model innovations
that can deliver sustainable impact.

When the onset of the pandemic threated its in-restaurant
business, McDonald’s launched the “Accelerating theArches” growth strategy, doubling down on digital, drivethrough, and delivery. Digital innovations cut 30 seconds
off drive-through ordering times during the pandemic,
enabling the restaurant chain to move more cars throughits windows when indoor dining was limited. McDonald’s
also has created a customer experience team to improve
diner engagement on the premises and digitally by
combining data analytics and global marketing insights.
The company has similarly been using AI-driven
prediction and recommendation algorithms to decide
what customers are most likely to want to buy anddisplaying it prominently on digital menus.

Good Advice (Updated) Stands the Test of Time
Successful companies make a commitment to long-term
innovation while also taking advantage of near-term opportunities, such as weakened competitors, to improve theirpositions. In our 2009 report, we offered “seven aggressive
innovations strategies,” both long term and short term, forleading out of the downturn. Nearly a decade and a halflater, those approaches are still valid, although they could
be updated to add the following strategies to reflect today’s
more technology- and data-intensive environment:• Stay aggressively invested. Maximize the impact of yourinvestments by optimizing the innovation pipeline and funnel.

• Go bargain hunting. Find attractive acquisitions andbuild innovation into the M&A process by including
innovation expertise on M&A teams and targeting newtechnologies and talent.
• Acquire intellectual property (IP) on the cheap. Go
after complementary ideas or capabilities and monetize
off-strategy IP assets. For example, investors are alreadyrewarding smart climate moves in their valuations.
• Raid competitors’ talent pools. Don’t be afraid to findtalent wherever it may be—and locate talent pools inother industries—to build your own capabilities.
• Stage a network invasion. Intervene in ecosystems to
expand access to external capabilities and talent.
• Use innovation to attack competitors’ profit
strongholds. Your innovation investments can disrupt
the strongholds of others (as well as your own) byentering new markets with new models.
Some companies already have the tools to execute theserecommendations and to do so with speed. Catching up
with the leaders is much more challenging than it used tobe, because moving fast requires sophisticated capabilities
that are neither easy nor quick to acquire. If downturns do infact separate winners and losers, then winners are sitting
pretty—and that could make their competitors sitting ducks.

• Alter your business model in strategic, gamechanging ways. Choose game-changing technology, or combinations of technologies, that secure sustainable advantage.

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP

13

How Early Winners Are Unlocking
AI’s Potentials
By Justin Manly, Michael Ringel, Amy MacDougall, Will Cornock, Johann Harnoss, Konstantinos Apostolatos, Ramón Baeza,
Ryoji Kimura, Michael Ward, Beth Viner, Jean-Manuel Izaret, Wendi Backler, Vlad Lukic, Sylvain Duranton, and Romain de LaubiertA

rtificial intelligence (AI) is having a big impact on
how companies approach innovation, but arecompanies achieving big innovation impact from AI?
The evidence is mixed.
The question isn’t whether AI can have an impact. While
technical challenges that may prevent achieving full value
persist, many companies have realized some benefit—
and often with minimal investment. It’s more a matter ofwhether companies are using AI properly and for use caseswith the potential to drive real business value.

14

The varying results that companies are achieving so far with
AI further increases the distance between organizations thathave well-functioning innovation engines and those that donot (See “The Formula for Innovation from Leading Companies” in this report). Indeed, given AI’s transformational
potential (which anyone can experience by taking ChatGPT
for a spin), failing to master the technology could ultimately prove fatal to a firm’s innovation program. Widening thedivide further, we are now entering a new world of AI thatis rapidly expanding the possibilities for how users engage
and experiment with technology. Whereas “old” AI reliedheavily on databases and supervised learning models, theemerging “new” AI is more accessible and offers thepotential to unlock broader insights. (See the sidebar“Defining AI in Innovation.”)

MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES 2023

Defining AI in Innovation
Artificial intelligence (AI) is at its core a set of algorithms
that classify, process, and manipulate data. “Random
forests,” “neural networks,” and “generative AI” are all
examples of the algorithms on which AI use cases arebuilt. While AI is continually evolving, the taxonomy issubject to change. BCG categorizes AI use cases into five
broad domains:
Computer Vision and Hearing. These capabilities involve identifying objects and individuals and extracting text
from images, speech, and handwriting (finding a specificelement in an image, for instance).
Natural Language Processing (NLP). This domain
involves translating human (or “natural”) language intomachine-understandable inputs—and vice-versa—and understanding and extracting meaning from natural language(such as identifying positive or negative sentiments in user
product reviews). Combining capabilities across multiple
domains unlocks additional use cases. For example, apps thatallow users to point their camera at a street sign in a foreign
language and translate it into their own utilize bothcomputer vision and NLP capabilities.
Machine Learning. Gartner describes machine learning,
the backbone of many companies’ applications, as a set ofalgorithms and techniques that operate guided by lessons
from existing information. Commonly used techniques areunsupervised, semi-supervised, and supervised learning.
Decision Making. This set of capabilities makes decisions
based on databases of similar cases or sets of human-definedrules. Decision making can be combined with machinelearning techniques to yield a self-learning expert system.
Responding and Generating. This domain includes,
among other techniques, the generative AI family ofalgorithms (used by such systems as DALL-E andChatGPT). They are capable of generating seemingly
new, realistic content, including text, images, or audio, fromthe vast quantity of unlabeled data they are trained tointerpret. They also use reinforcement learning techniques(also used in machine learning), which are based on“learning by doing,” as opposed to learning by observing.

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP

15

In the third article of this year’s Most Innovative
Companies report, we look at the current state of play of
AI in innovation and what early winners are doing right.

From Implementation to Impact
A majority of companies (61%) have invested in AI. In fact, AI isattracting investment from more companies than any othertechnology. (See Exhibit 11.) While most of these firms havesystematically implemented AI in one or more use cases (83%),
far fewer (45%) have managed to translate this into business
impact. (See the sidebar “Implementing AI with Impact.”)
The most common innovation-focused AI use cases (which
54% of respondents have implemented) are revealing
market trends and competitor activities, but few companies
use AI for just one thing. About 70% of those implementing
AI in innovation are experimenting across a range of use
cases. (See Exhibit 12.) The number achieving impact isconsistently much lower, indicating that, not surprisingly,
integrating the new technology into existing innovation
processes is a challenge. Among the biggest hurdles we’veheard cited are leadership’s lack of willingness to invest,
access to training data, the expense of data storage, andregulatory complexities.
The top three use cases with the most AI impact are
making portfolio prioritization decisions (40% of companies
implementing AI for that use case achieve impact), identifying
players with external innovation potential (38%), and revealing
market trends and competitor activities (37%). But successvaries across sectors. (See Exhibit 13.) Companies in themedtech (51%), materials (48%), and chemicals (47%) industries
are the most successful at achieving impact from AI.
These sectors show roughly a 1.5 times higher likelihoodof AI impact for innovation than the overall average acrossall industries. Previous BCG research has shown that astrong digital foundation is key to being able to scale AI,
and medtech, chemicals, and pharma (which ranks fourth
for impact) are all R&D-focused sectors. These companies

are therefore more likely to be better able to couple advanced digital capabilities with new product development.
Companies’ ability to invest in other, related technologies isanother indicator of success. Those that invest in four ormore advanced technologies in addition to AI are threetimes more likely to see impact than those that invest only inAI, and success rates climb with the number of technology
fields receiving funding. (See Exhibit 14.) “We use AI as a tool
to enable such domains such as robotics, IoT, and communications,” the R&D director at a European durable goods
company told us. Chemicals and telecommunications (seventh
for impact) are heavy users of the Internet of Things (IoT).
Similarly, pharma, finance (sixth) and transportation (fifth)
invest quite heavily in robotics compared with other industries.
Some chemicals and pharma companies are experimenting
with the combination of AI and quantum computing in thehunt for new materials and medicines.
Large gaps between use case implementation and impact
indicate a use case without a strong value proposition, an
industry unable to capitalize on AI, or both. The industries
with the biggest divide between implementation and impact
are the public sector, wholesale and retail, and media andentertainment. Certain industry and use case combinations
are especially effective at driving greater rates of impact. For
example, 73% of medtech companies that implement AI toreveal market trends realize impact, the highest rate of allindustry-use case combinations. Second place belongs topharma companies: 63% that use AI to identify players forexternal innovation potential realize impact from its use,which perhaps isn’t surprising given the need to navigate
the complex R&D ecosystems in this field.
A great deal of untapped potential exists for some industry-use case combinations, especially in sectors where aparticular use case demonstrates outsized impact. For
example, only 30% of travel companies use AI to support theidea creation process, even though travel companies that do
apply AI realize impact at the highest rate in the industry.
Only 39% of telecom companies use AI to identify new

The question isn’t whether AI canhave an impact. It’s whether companies
are implementing AI for use cases withthe potential to drive business value.
16

MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES 2023

Exhibit 11

More Companies Are Investing in AI Than in Any Other
Technology

Which technology categories are you investing in this year? (%)

-15

61
46

44
29

AI (such asmachinelearning)

Robotics
and process
automation

Internet ofThings (IoT)
and Edge
Computing

Blockchains,
Web3, and
DeFi

29

27

16

Human/machine
Augmented,
Nanotechnology,
augmentation
virtual, andsynthetic biology,
and hybrids
synthetic realities and biomimicry

10
Quantum
computingSources: BCG Global Innovation Survey 2023; BCG analysis.
Note: n = 1,023 for global respondents.

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP

17

Implementing AI with Impact
In the 2023 innovation survey, we asked respondents torate their company’s use of AI across six use cases:• Revealing market trends and competitor activities (suchas domains, topics, and technologies)• Making portfolio prioritization decisions• Identifying players with external innovation potential(such as alliances, partnerships, venturing, and M&A)
• Informing innovation investment decisions (such as
starting an R&D project in a particular field)• Identifying new innovation themes, domains,adjacencies, and technologies• Providing input to support idea creation (such as
surfacing or validating ideas)
We also asked respondents to rank their companies’ skill
at leveraging AI from one to five, with one meaning thatthey hadn’t implemented that use case and five signifying
they had implemented the use case with impact.
Companies that implemented use cases with impact (levelfive) believe that “the codified and implemented practice isgenerally viewed within the company as a driver of innovation
impact,” consistent with the company’s innovation ambitions.

18

MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES 2023

Exhibit 12 - Many Companies Are Using AI to Support Innovation, but Few
Are Achieving Impact
How would you rate your company’s skill at leveraging big data, advanced analytics, and AI to help with innovation? (%)

-34

-30

54

50

20

Revealing market trends andcompetitor activities (such as domains,
topics, and technologies)

-29
46

20

17

Making portfolio prioritization decisions-33

Identifying players with external innovation
potential (such as alliances, partnerships, andventuring M&A)

-32

46

-31

45
13

44
13

Informing innovation investment
decisions (such as starting an R&D projectin any given ﬁeld)

Identifying new innovation themes,domains, adjacencies, technologies, and so on

Implemented AI for this use case13
Providing input to support the idea
creation process (such as surfacing andvalidating ideas)

Realized impact from AI implementation

Sources: BCG Global Innovation Survey 2023; BCG analysis.
Note: n = 1,023 for global respondents.

innovation themes, despite the fact that 50% of implementors
realize impact from this use case. The use cases with themost untapped potential across all industries include identifying players with innovation potential, supporting the idea
creation process, and identifying new innovation themes.

H&M: Leveraging AI and Human Input for
Amplified Intelligence
Take the example of fashion retailer H&M, which leverages
AI to optimize business processes, enhance personalization,and drive amplified intelligence with human collaboration.
The company began exploring AI in 2016, using the vast
data it had available to enhance communication, personalization, and offerings for customers. Management sought
to embed the use of AI throughout the organization byaddressing various existing business challenges across theentire value chain rather than focusing on a single usecase. Working with AI has helped H&M optimize various
aspects of its business, from fashion forecasting and

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP

quantification to pricing and personalization. The successful
implementation across the organization has led to a reduction
in waste associated with raw materials and logistics, bringing
H&M closer to reaching its sustainability goals.
H&M combines AI and human input for amplified
intelligence; the combination of data-driven AI and humanintuition has proven to be more effective than either
capability on its own. One example is in end-of-season
sales, where AI improved pricing and sales, but when it was
combined with human input the results were twice as
impressive as with AI alone. In implementing these AI
solutions, H&M strongly emphasized ownership for
employees, trusting them to drive the execution byfollowing an approach it calls “tight, loose, tight,” which
has concrete strategies and metrics.

19

Exhibit 13 - AI’s Impact on Innovation Varies Significantly by Industry
and Use Case
AI use case implementation and impact by industry (%)

Overall

Overall

32

Medtech51

Materials

48

Chemicals

47

Pharma39

Transportation

34

Finance34

Telecom

34

Auto

33

Tech hardware

33

Travel31

Energy31

Manufacturing

30

Consumer

29

Software27

Public sector

26

Media

24

Durable goods

21

Insurance

20

Retail17

Making portfolio
prioritization
decisions

Revealing market Identifying players
trends andwith external
competitor
innovation potential
activities

37

Frequency of use case
implementation

36

Rate of achieving
impact to date

35

Identifying new
innovation
themesSupporting theidea creation
process

Informing
innovation
investment
decisions

29

29

26

Largest gap between rates of
implementation and impact

Quartiles

Sources: BCG Global Innovation Survey 2023; BCG analysis.
Note: n = 1,023 for global respondents.

20

MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES 2023

Exhibit 14 - Investing in Other Technologies Concurrently with AI Increases
the Rate of Achieving Impact
How would you rate your company’s skill at leveraging big data, advanced analytics, and AI to help with innovation(out of respondents that invested in AI and in a number of other tech categories)? (%)

+53
-57

-39

-40

81

One active tech investment(AI only)

41

39

24

Two active tech
investments

Three active tech
investments

Implemented AI

93

92

80

79

-15

-39

77

53
Four active tech
investments

Five or more active
tech investments

Realized impact from AI implementation

Sources: BCG Global Innovation Survey 2023; BCG analysis.
Note: n = 1,023 for global respondents.

H&M adopts an agile approach, implementing AI in waves
through iterative testing and learning cycles, a methodology
it describes as “dream big, start small, and scale fast.”
H&M’s entrepreneurial culture helped employees adapt
and take pride in their work alongside AI systems, emphasizing the importance of value over technology capabilities.

Four Impact Success Factors
AI alone won’t supercharge an innovation program.
Companies must have the right platforms and practices inplace. In our experience, companies that successfully scale
AI typically dedicate 10% of their investment to algorithms,
20% to technology, and 70% to people and embedding AI
into business processes. AI can also accelerate the ability
to access external sources of input, speed the generationand evaluation of ideas, and inform decision making.
Through our research and case work, we have identified
four key factors to help companies successfully incorporate
AI into their innovation efforts.

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP

A Strong Digital Backbone and Data Pipeline. To
enable AI, companies must have established digital and datacapabilities. Leaders make data and technology accessible
across the organization, avoiding siloed and incompatible
tech stacks and standalone databases that impede scaling.
Our research into AI scaling has shown that companies thatmake more than 75% of technology and data widely available
have a 40% greater likelihood of realizing AI use cases atscale than those that make 25% or less widely available.
The survey reveals that among companies that haveinvested in AI, those that have successfully implemented
AI in their innovation processes are 1.5 times as likely toprioritize full data transparency and effective digital tools
for decision making. They are also twice as likely to havean active digital innovation laboratory, and they invest in
an average of 2.5 times as many complementary
technologies (such as IoT and augmented reality). These
complementary technologies in turn generate data toenhance AI algorithms, creating a positive feedback loop
as algorithms learn from what they do.

21

Multiple Technology Initiatives. Companies that
achieve the most impact from AI also invest in otheradvanced technologies and combine these initiatives with
AI. Since AI algorithms learn from what they do, uses casesthat require technologies such as robotics, automation, or
high-throughput sensors that facilitate data collection fuelthe AI learning and development process. The mostcommon technologies to pair with AI investment are
robotics for process automation and IoT. The success ratefrom investing in additional technologies rises fast: each
additional technology increases the likelihood of realizing
impact from AI by 26%.
A Robust Innovation Funnel. The executives and expertsthat we interviewed for this report cited three questions
they ask when prioritizing investments in AI:• Is this technically feasible given our digital foundation?
• What is the business value and how fast can we realize it?
• Will this investment develop a core capability that canbe leveraged for other use cases?
Companies that realize impact from AI become idea
generation powerhouses with robust innovation funnels
that both incubate new ideas and rigorously prioritize
investment. (See Exhibit 15.) These firms generate morethan five times as many ideas than others and incubate
more than twice as many minimum viable products. With
more than three times as many people working in innovationrelated functions, these organizations apply demanding
feasibility criteria for new ideas and are twice as selective
as companies that don’t realize impact from AI. The best
AI innovators develop a virtuous cycle or flywheel effect:
more ideas mean greater likelihood of finding the best use
cases for AI, and implementing AI helps generate moreideas. Some companies have begun incorporating
generative AI into the idea creation phase, leveraging thetechnology to stimulate their teams’ creativity.
Clear Articulation of Purpose and Responsibility.
Visible leadership from the top matters. Our researchshows that when the CEO personally articulates the
purpose of innovation for the organization, the likelihoodof the company achieving impact from using AI nearly
doubles. Driving impact from AI includes not only theimmediate results, but also the downstream implications.
Companies need to factor into their decision making how
the use of AI will play out over time. Leaders are alreadyinstilling the policies and practices of responsible AI (RAI).

22

Successful RAI begins with a set of clearly articulated
principles and is operationalized by translating principles
into policies and training, establishing clear governancemechanisms, building tools for end-to-end case reviews,
and integrating RAI considerations into existing tools andmethods. RAI is not just a risk mitigation tool but a mechanism to accelerate innovation. By providing a frameworkwith clear guardrails, RAI allows innovators to experimentwith confidence and catch failures faster. In a joint BCGMIT Sloan Management Review global survey in 2022, half of
responsible AI leaders reported having developed better
products and services as a result of their RAI efforts
compared with only 19% of nonleaders. More than 40%
of RAI leaders cited accelerated innovation as a benefit
compared with 17% of nonleaders.
Given the accelerating pace of advancement in AI, it isimperative for corporate leaders to establish mechanisms
to monitor these new capabilities, evaluate risks andopportunities for their business, and ensure that they areleveraging the technology in the most promising use cases.

Moderna: Pioneering AI-Driven Innovation in
the Fight Against Cancer
One of the most powerful examples of AI impact is Moderna’s use of the technology in the development of vaccines
and therapeutics. Moderna famously leveraged digitaltechnology and AI to accelerate the design of its mRNA
vaccine against COVID-19, but the story goes much deeper.
Moderna is applying its technology platform to open a newfrontier in cancer treatment: individualized neoantigen
therapies. In collaboration with Merck, Moderna has joined
the fight against skin cancer with an investigational
mRNA-based therapy, which Phase 2b results suggest can
reduce the risk of recurrence or death from melanoma by
44%. Leveraging a proprietary algorithm, the manufacturing
process begins by analyzing the patient’s tumor to identify
the cancer-causing mutations and then crafts an individualized
neoantigen therapy designed to maximize each patient’s
immune response to their specific tumor mutation
signature. Taking this even further, Moderna recently
announced a research partnership with IBM to leverage AI
and quantum computing to advance and accelerate thedevelopment of breakthrough mRNA-based therapies.

MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES 2023

Exhibit 15 - Companies That Successfully Implement AI Have Much More
Productive Innovation Funnels
Characterize your product development funnel, starting with launched projects and then working backwards to idea generation

ImpactImplemented

Companies that see impact from
implementing AI

Companies that implemented AI
with no impact

Ideas generated

Average number of ideas
generated per year

451

5x

more ideas generated

84

Ideas validated

Average number of generated
ideas being validated

Ideas incubated

Average number of validated
ideas being incubated

69
26

19

2x

more selective in incubation

11

Sources: BCG Global Innovation Survey 2023; BCG analysis.
Note: n = 1,023 for global respondents.

Moderna’s CEO, Stéphane Bancel, has publicly cited“going digital” as a key reason for the biotech’s success.
From its inception, Moderna built much of its drug discovery
and manufacturing process in the cloud, incorporating AI
throughout. By prioritizing a digitally enabled mRNA
platform over any one particular product, Moderna has
been able to deliver rapid vaccine and drug developmentthat builds quickly on each consecutive success.

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP

T

o achieve impact responsibly, AI needs leadershipfrom the top, the right foundational capabilities, andstrong guardrails. These elements require time andinvestment. But given the technology’s transformational
potential, especially for innovation, they are worth the effort.

23

About the Authors
Justin Manly is a managing director and partner in
the Chicago office of Boston Consulting Group. You may
contact him by email at manly.justin@bcg.com.

Michael Ringel is a managing director and senior partnerin the firm’s Boston office. You may contact him by email
at ringel.michael@bcg.com.

Amy MacDougall is a principal in BCG’s Los Angeles office.
You may contact her by email at macdougall.amy@bcg.com.

Will Cornock is a partner in the firm’s New York office. You
may contact him by email at cornock.william@bcg.com.

Johann Harnoss is a partner and associate director for
innovation in BCG’s Berlin office. You may contact him byemail at harnoss.johann@bcg.com.

Konstantinos Apostolatos is a managing director andsenior partner in the firm’s Brussels office. You may contact
him by email at apostolatos.konstantinos@bcg.com.

Ramón Baeza is a managing director and senior partner
in BCG’s Madrid office. You may contact him by email atbaeza.ramon@bcg.com.

Michael Ward is a senior advisor in BCG’s New York office.
You may contact him at ward.michael@advisor.bcg.com.

Beth Viner is a managing director and partner in the
New York office of BCG X. You may contact her by email atbeth.viner@bcgdv.com.

Jean-Manuel Izaret is a managing director and senior
partner in BCG’s San Francisco office. You may contact
him by email at izaret.jeanmanuel@bcg.com.

Wendi Backler is a partner and director, innovation
analytics and IP, in the firm’s Toronto office. You may
contact her by email at backler.wendi@bcg.com.

Vlad Lukic is a managing director and senior partner
in BCG’s Boston office. You may contact him by email at
lukic.vlad@bcg.com.

Sylvain Duranton is managing director and senior partner
in BCG’s Paris office and global leader of BCG X. You may
contact him by email at duranton.sylvain@bcg.com.

Romain de Laubier is managing director and partner in
BCG’s Tokyo office. You may contact him by email atdelaubier.romain@bcg.com.

Ryoji Kimura is a managing director and senior partnerin the firm’s Tokyo office. You may contact him by email at
kimura.ryoji@bcg.com

24

MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES 2023

Acknowledgments

Methodology

The authors thank the following colleagues for their assistancewith the preparation of this report: Faisal Akkawi, Gabe
Bouslov, Jon Campos, Malvika Verma, Duc Anh Phi, Yohei
Shoji, Philipp Strack, Michael Wahlen, and Gabriel Wang.

BCG’s Most Innovative Companies ranking is based inlarge part on a survey of more than 1,000 global innovation
executives who were polled in December 2022 and January
2023. We assess a company’s performance on four
dimensions and then take an average of normalized scores tocalculate its overall ranking. These four dimensions are:

For Further Contact• Global Mindshare—the number of votes received
from all global innovation executives

If you would like to discuss this report, please contact
the authors.

• Industry Peer View—the number of votes received
from executives in a company’s own industry• Industry Disruption—the Diversity Index(Herfindahl-Hirschman) of votes across industries• Value Creation—total shareholder return, including
share buybacks, over the three-year period fromJanuary 1, 2020, through December 31, 2022

Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in businessand society to tackle their most important challenges andcapture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneerin business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today,
we work closely with clients to embrace a transformational
approach aimed at benefiting all stakeholders—empoweringorganizations to grow, build sustainable competitive
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Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional
expertise and a range of perspectives that question thestatus quo and spark change. BCG delivers solutions
through leading-edge management consulting, technology
and design, and corporate and digital ventures. We workin a uniquely collaborative model across the firm andthroughout all levels of the client organization, fueled by
the goal of helping our clients thrive and enabling themto make the world a better place.

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MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES 2023