• How to minimize project risks and pinpoint developing opportunities
• Where you should allocate resources to achieve a balanced innovation portfolio
• Which ideas, projects, and initiatives you can invest in faster with greater confidence

The benchmarking is based on the InnoSurvey, one of the world's most sophisticated innovation management tools that currently compiles a decade of data on innovation capabilities from over 10,000 organizations in 105 countries around the globe.

It also draws from more than 100 years of global history in innovation, including specific theories and successful techniques you can apply immediately to gain insight on your team or organization: the 4 revolutions, the 3 horizons, the 10 personas, the 7 types of innovation, the 5 leadership styles, and more.

Between 2016 and 2025, more than 10,000 organizations across all major industries, regions, and sizes have been assessed using the same stable instrument, InnoSurvey®️. The result is a rare longitudinal data set that allows innovation to be analyzed with the same statistical discipline that is common in finance, operations, and risk. It is also aligned to ISO 56000.

What the data show is unambiguous: innovation capability is measurable, comparable, and predictive of execution success.

Each assessment takes approximately 15 minutes, is available in more than 20 languages, and is designed to provide a 360-degree view across roles and collaborators. Statistically, the instrument shows exceptionally high internal reliability, stable distributions over time, and strong differentiation between organizations that innovate successfully and those that do not.

In practical terms, this means the dataset supports benchmarking, correlation analysis, and longitudinal tracking with confidence levels above 90 percent when applied correctly.

So you can be confident that the InnoSurvey will identify your strengths, gaps, and opportunities.

Private, public, and non-profit sector. This includes large companies and small start-ups, non-profits, and government.

Assessments can be completed for different outcomes, such as a specific team; a department or business unit, the full organization, an innovation (e.g., regional) cluster; or as part of an Innovation360 Group Circle - see more on Circles below.

One of the insights from this global benchmarking database is that even leading global organizations across a range of sectors (manufacturing, healthcare, finance, electronics, etc.) do not often set clear direction for innovation. These are organizations that fully understand how to tie finance, operations, and other essential functions to their strategies and mission, so what's happening with innovation?

The data show that 75 percent of organizations are making substantial efforts in innovation, and yet only 55 percent set innovation goals and work systematically towards them.

Where does your organization fall?

• 25% making marginal efforts
• 20% spending substantial effort without clear direction
• 55% investing in innovation outcomes and alignment

Nearly half - 45 percent - of organizations are either not focused on innovation efforts at all (25%) or make effort without setting up goals or systems (20%). This gap is the "Just Innovate!" un-strategy: vaguely telling your people to figure it out and making substantial efforts with no clear goals, direction, or systems.

Teams are working hard. Budgets are being spent. Initiatives are being launched. But is there a clear connection between ambition, priorities, and execution?

The result? A graveyard of failed initiatives, misalignment, little progress from the status quo. Maybe some well-intended workshops, idea campaigns, and or R&D labs without a reliable way to know whether innovation capability is actually improving or contributing to success. And if you pay attention -- you'll likely find related issues such as cost overruns and waning attraction and retention of top talent.

Great ideas that can't gain traction for lack of a system to test and scale.

Huge investments that miss the mark but were not stopped or adapted quickly enough.

Opportunities to create the future squashed by narrow thinking.

Taking on too many initiatives at once and not making headway on the most critical path.

Getting outpaced by the market and your competitors because your implementation speed is too slow.

Bad leadership decisions - not getting the right people on the right projects at the right times.

Being too focused on today's business and not anticipating how customer needs are changing.

Any of these sound familiar? Any others you would add here?

Without data, attempts at innovation tend to collapse into beliefs, anecdotes, and politics. Different contributors hold incompatible views of reality, strategic ambitions become disconnected from operational capability, and prioritization becomes guesswork.

Measurement changes this dynamic.

With a shared empirical reference point, organizations can literally "start on the same page" and ask probing questions:

• Where are we genuinely strong and where are we exposed?
• How do we compare to relative benchmarks by industry, region, and size?
• Which capabilities most strongly predict execution success?
• What should we fix first to create measurable movement beyond the insights?

The shift from opinion-based debate to evidence-based exploration is the single most important enabler of sustained innovation performance.

The recent Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences highlighted that long-term economic growth is not driven by isolated breakthroughs, but by institutions, incentives, and capabilities that enable innovation to be repeated at scale in the culture. (See link provided below if you would like to read more on this.)

Progress and innovation outcomes depend on how organizations and societies structure decision-making, learning, and investment under VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) conditions. 

What benchmarking shows is that the ability to innovate consistently is not random, nor innate. It is systemic. It can be measured. And it can be improved, step-by-step.

The benchmark is a starting point to show you strengths, hidden strain, and opportunities in your team, organization, or cluster.

Organizations can:

• Benchmark themselves against peers and best-in-class performers
• Track progress over time with statistical confidence
• Link strategic intent to operational capability gaps
• Design credible, evidence-based innovation roadmaps

The roadmap provides goals that are tied to strategy as well as defining leadership approaches and execution that upskill decision-making, resource efficiency, and the innovation outcomes you need to achieve your mission.

The question is no longer can innovation be measured (in the same way we measure other functions such as finance, operations, and risk).

The question is: What are we prepared to do with the insights that measurement gives us?

A Circle is a sponsored one-day innovation training that incorporates the InnoSurvey. Participants from multiple organizations are invited by the sponsoring organization(s) to complete the InnoSurvey in advance, and each participant receives a customized report for the training. Circles are highly interactive: participants learn and inspire each other to create action plans.

If you are interested in sponsoring a Circle, we are experienced organizers and facilitators.

Sources: Innovation360 including the February 2026 white paper: "Charting the Path: Why 45% of Organizations Innovate Without a Map & What You Can Do About It" by Innovation360 and InnovaSalud. Contact us to request a copy.

If you would like to read more on the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences:

What You Need to Know About Creative Destruction