As the coronavirus pandemic has led to shelter-in-place orders and sharply reduced economic activity around the world, innovators are wondering about what the future could look like for their teams, organizations, and industries. And they are feeling new pressures.
To better understand what’s happening in corporate innovation and R&D right now, we fielded a survey from April 27-May 4, 2020. We heard from 112 respondents, 71 percent of them in organizations with more than 1,000 employees.
We found that teams are facing significant changes to innovation priorities, including providing an increased amount of support to the core business. While some innovators have been subject to layoffs and furloughs, innovation-related hiring freezes and budget cuts were more common. Teams have also had to quickly adapt to virtual ways of working due to stay-at-home advisories.
But some organizations are looking at the crisis as an opportunity to build for the future: “We are well positioned to go on the offense. Uncertainty creates opportunity for innovation,” one respondent in the financial services industry told us.
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