In the last ten years, Innovation has become not only the biggest opportunity for companies, but also their greatest threat.

Innovation is an opportunity because, once the innovation is carried out and taken to the market, the globalization will help create enormous wealth from it. Innovation is a threat because there is not a single industry that is safe from innovations made by competitors –not only from the same industry, but also from unrelated industries.

Michael Porter pointed out that “The Competitiveness of a Nation depends on the capacity its industries to innovate and improve continuously” [1].

Innovation and Continuous Improvement are vital for companies as they compete in a global environment because its margins are continuously affected by competitors, taxes, governmental regulations, incremental costs, obsolescence, etc.

In this sense, innovation is no longer a luxury item, but it is a skill and a competence badly needed by companies and countries: “ … Innovation is the most important factor in any modern economy. More than half of the economic growth of developed countries is due to this factor.”[2]

Globalization and the arrival of India and China into the economic scenario are changing forever the basis of competition. Innovation is the new weapon to create growth and prosperity in the years to come.

[1] Porter, Michael, "The Competitive Advantage of Nations", Harvard Business Review, March-April 1990
[2]“The Economist” Sept 21 – 27, 2002, Page 10 Technology Quarterly.