8 Conditions That Impact R&D Spending Results

Please Note: This is a downloadable video (MP4 format). The program is part of a overall series on R&D Spending Performance, " The R&D Spending Performance 8-8-8 Webinar Series."

8 Conditions That Impact R&D Spending Results

Program Description

The program will cover eight conditions ranging from spending decisions in boom and bust periods, to overspending and underspending, to the impacts of variable spending and other spending irregularities on corporate time-to-market, programs, output, productivity, investor performance, patents, and overall corporate performance. Each of these 8 Conditions impacts ROI and Rates of Return in some way. And, we will cover findings about what to do to make the best of the several situations.

What's notable about these 8 Conditions is that managers and companies cannot prevent or preempt them. One can only react and deal with them. In some cases, one can see them coming. Most are largely blind. These conditions affect decisions on R&D Spending that have tangible impacts on corporate business and financial results in the intermediate and longer term.

We'll start the program by looking at the spending patterns of the largest spending countries in the world, quickly move that discussion from a country-level to an industry-level, and look at the collective impacts over the past twenty years of many of the 8 Conditions on R&D Spending and Results.

We’ll then discuss each of the 8 Conditions by sharing the most relevant and thoughtful case studies, academic research, and market examples from our research, These are all very real things. Only recently are we beginning to understand what they mean, and their Impacts, when they happen.

There is a ""y"" theme in the Table of Contents you see below for this program. We’re guilty of a bit of word-smithing, but thinking of ""conditions ending in y"" may be useful as there are more than a handful when you're in a conversation. Take ""Procyclicality"" for example. It is not a word that many use in business. It means that R&D spending follows economic trends. The old adage of invest more in R&D in a downturn to come out strong when the economy picks up turns out to be a nothing-burger. We'll show the data. You can expect the same for the remaining seven Conditions.

We'll conclude the program with two lessons of history, and a finding in 2004 in BusinessWeek that should not be forgotten -- until the time arrives that we know a great deal more about R&D Spending and its tie to Results than remains the case today.

The goal of this program is to better enable participants to lessen the effects when stuff happens, mitigate the effects of stuff when you can see it coming, or you are directed to make stuff happen associated with one of these conditions. These are emerging islands of knowledge in the management science of R&D spending. Our findings will be useful in the quest to optimize ROI and RoR from investments in R&D and innovation.

Bibliographic references are provided for the numerous cases and examples we cite to enable all participants to further their investigation on the subjects of specific interest.

There will be two polls.

Topics

Procyclicality is when you spend with the trend.
Intensity is when you under, over, or hopefully right-spend.
Variability is when things fluctuate, short and intermediate term.
Emergency is when there is an geopolitical or financial market event.
Discontinuity is when you change the budgeted amount, or gaps in funding.
Anticipatory is when you spot mega-patterns and plan for them.
Divvy is when the industry pattern lulls you into complacency.
Sociology is when laws and demographics affect competition.

Webinar Take-Aways

R&D spending patterns of the world's largest spending countries.
A snapshot of the world's major industries and which countries lead them.
8 economic and business conditions that undermine R&D spending performance.
Quantified financial impacts of challenging economic times and events on R&D.

61 Minutes