Smart ideas for tough times: The 50 companies that make up our annual ranking nurture cultures that value creative people in good times and badView Slide Show
Suddenly, innovation has a bull's-eye on its back. As the recession debate shifts from "what if" to "how long," slashing research and development budgets just got a lot more tempting. That high-risk product in your pipeline? It's about to get much more scrutiny. And the "chief innovation officer" your CEO brought in last year to show his commitment to creativity? He'd better start proving his worth. Outside consultants are starting to pick up on the effects of such belt-tightening. "I'm seeing it in my business," says Jeneanne Rae, president of Alexandria (Va.)-based consulting firm Peer Insight. "There's this sense of which shoe's going to drop next."
Others are seeing two camps emerge. "One is saying times are tough, so it's the most important time for us to innovate," says Scott Anthony, president of Innosight, a consultancy founded by Harvard Business School professor and innovation guru Clayton M. Christensen. "The other is saying 'we simply don't have the ability to think about innovation right now.' There's a real separation between the innovation haves and have-nots."
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