• Overview
• Objectives
• Profiles
• Learning Experience
• Faculty
• Dates & Fees

Innovation as a competitive advantage

Innovationis rapidly becoming the enabler that strengthens and focuses business strategies, offering perhaps one of the few sustainable competitive advantages an organisation has. In most organisations it is not focused and or strategic yet, but it is starting to become a key focus of CEO’s and senior executives as they realise that only innovation can help the organisation continually grow and differentiate. 

During the Strategic R&D Management programme you will look at how organisations make product innovation happen, and examine how senior managers engage in and support product innovation in a way that supports – rather than dissipates – the thrust of their business strategy. You will learn how to manage product innovation as a strategic business process that cuts across and involves multiple functions. By using a framework for R&D, you will be able to deliver more and better product innovation to your company. For over 15 years, the Strategic R&D Management programme has been constantly evolving, consistently remaining at the forefront of product development business concern.

Key Benefits

• Build tools to measure performance of uncertain and long-term innovation
• Build processes and structures that support innovation for different purposes and with different degrees of novelty
• Align functional contributions to innovation and better coordinate dispersed activities
• Build tools to translate business strategy into a portfolio of innovation initiatives

Strategic R&D Management, an INSEAD/Wharton alliance programme, seeks to equip participants with skills and tools for creating added value through creativity and innovation in their organisations. 

Using case studies, experiential exercises, group work, and lectures, the programme examines the business outcome of R&D and includes the following components:

• Organisational innovativeness and idea creation
• Innovation strategy and how it is executed by the new product portfolio
• Managing capacity: prioritising the new product portfolio in the R&D pipeline
• Measuring project performance and overall innovation performance
• Managing a portfolio of processes for different types of innovations (from incremental to radical)
• Co-ordination and effective organisational structures for product innovation
• Architectures, platforms and cost management in R&D
• R&D partnerships and alliances: strategies and processes
• Transferring knowledge
• Innovation culture and managing professionals

Designed for senior managers involved in product innovation (either directly or because this is a major focus of their organisation) the programme attracts participants from a great diversity of industries and countries.

Participants may be moving from a specialised function into a more generalist role, or be general managers required to be more closely involved in product innovation. Past participants have included programme managers of major research initiatives, directors of labs and vice presidents of R&D, senior managers with a heavy stake in the successful running of their company’s R&D effort, as well as executives from engineering, marketing, finance, manufacturing, sales, or service.

A careful admissions process seeks to align the expectations and needs of executives with the experience they can bring to the group.

"I particularly appreciated the cases studied and the interactions between the professors and all the participants. The professors were excellent and they treated a large variety of topics during this one week programme. They provide useful tools to efficiently manage R&D."

Director Network Architecture,
Alcatel Bell
Belgium 

"The programme opens new perspectives, new views on R&D management. The exercises in small groups were very helpful to understand and to apply the concepts." 

Senior R&D Project Manager
Angiomed C.R. Bard
Germany

Great minds don’t think alike

INSEAD’s professors represent many cultures, disciplines, and perspectives. This programme is led by an international team of leading faculty in product innovation management. Participants benefit from the faculty’s deep knowledge of strategic R&D management in diverse industries and countries as well as from their first-hand industry experience.*

	Shantanu Bhattacharya Programme Director (Singapore session) Associate Professor of Operations Management INSEAD Professor Bhattacharya's teaching and research interests are in the areas of technology management, operations management, supply chain management and new product and services development. Professor Bhattacharya is a member of INFORMS, Read more...
	Jurgen Mihm Programme Director (Fontainebleau session) Assistant Professor of Technology and Operations Management Jürgen Mihm's research interests are concerned with all management aspects of large engineering projects. He holds a Doctorate in Technology Management from Wissenschaftliche Hochschule Koblenz (WHU) and a joint degree in business and electrical engineering (Dipl. Wirtsch. Ing.) from Technische Universität Darmstadt. Read more...
	Christian Terwiesch Programme Director (Philadelphia session) Associate Professor of Operations and Information Management, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
	Tom Allen Howard W. Johnson Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management
	Michael Pich Affiliate Professor of Operations Management and Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise
	Manuel Sosa Associate Professor of Technology and Operations Management

*programme faculty may change

Dates & Fees

Please click here for more information about the terms and conditions.

For full details on how to apply, accommodation, and cancellation conditions please visit the Practical Information page

* Fee subject to change. For programmes delivered in France, VAT (19.6%) to be added for companies based in France, or for European companies where no VAT number is supplied. For programmes delivered in Singapore, GST (7%) to be added for Singapore-registered companies.