From the course: Developing Business Acumen

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Understand research and development

Understand research and development

From the course: Developing Business Acumen

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Understand research and development

- New products, new services, and improvements to products and processes is the purview of research and development. Depending on your industry, R and D lead times for new products can be short, like for an internet business, or they can make a quick change. Medium, like for a consumer package goods company, or long, say for a pharmaceutical company. How does your organization innovate? Is there a formal R and D function? Or is R and D outsourced to another company? Do you acquire new innovations, going out and buying companies because they've got a great capability, and you want to bring it in house? Buying innovation is a very lucrative method, and it can be very fast. What type of R and D does your organization do? Is it all about new products? Or cost reductions? Is R and D changing your processes? Different R and D models are dependent upon your business model. I worked with a pharmaceutical company that had very long lead times for new products, getting a new drug to market…

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