The Innovation Assessment Tool

The innovation audit is a diagnostic management tool, used extensively in the UK and South Africa. The tool enables management to identify company strengths and weaknesses, to focus on key areas of improvement and to strengthen understanding of business opportunities, leading to improved business performance.

The instrument consists of business scorecards which measure innovation performance in the company. The company is measured on the following levels:

Strategic level
Operational level
Individual level

The audit benchmarks the company against world-class practice by means of: Enablers of innovation (i.e. leadership, resources, market focus); The core factors of innovation (systems and tools, product innovation, product development, technology transfer, technology acquisition, and networking), and The outcomes of innovation (innovation performance).

The Deliverables

The tool:

Measures the company's innovation performance against world-class practice;
Assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the company's approach to, and practice
of, innovation as a strategy to create competitive advantage;
Identifies opportunities for generating more income from available technology,
equipment and expertise;
Is a source of strategic management information, and
Provides action plans to deploy innovation to increase the bottom-line of the company.