MIT Sloan Management Review

International Business, Management of Technology and Innovation

Is Your Innovation Process Global?

By José Santos, Yves Doz and Peter Williamson

July 15, 2004

By sourcing and integrating knowledge from dispersed geographic locations, companies can generate more innovations of higher value and lower cost.

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Many companies have supply chains that are global. Starting with the sourcing of components and raw materials from around the world, they then move their basic manufacturing to low-cost locations overseas. An increasing number of companies also have begun to transfer their support services and customer call centers to cheaper sites. But few of them have innovation processes that are equally global.

It”s true that many companies have research centers or product-development teams scattered around the world. But more often that not, each of those units is focused on leveraging the knowledge available at its doorstep. Even so-called “centers of... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.

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