Metrics for innovation: guidelines for developing a customized suite of innovation metrics

Purpose – During the past year, the authors have built a framework for a suite of metrics that senior managers can customize to track and promote innovation success in their companies. Design/methodology/approach – Senior executives can use the suite of metrics to assess their company's innovativeness over time and hence combat the insidious strategy decay that often afflicts a company's business. Findings – The framework combines three views on innovation – resource, capability, and leadership – providing the perspective to develop a suite of metrics for assessing and developing a company's capacity for innovation. Research limitations/implications – The optimal selection of metrics and the optimal value or “sweet spot” of any particular metric will vary from company to company. Practical implications – As more firms develop strategic innovation metrics and a database that validates their relevance, top managers will learn to assess and guide a company's innovation capability more effectively. Originality/value – This is the first strategic guideline for building a customizable system of innovation metrics.