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Booz & Company Study: R&D Spending on the Decline

08/11/2010 / posted in Economy, R&D / No Comments

(from tradingmarket.com)

Total R&D spending among the world’s top spenders on innovation dropped in 2009 for the first time in the 13 years studied, according to the 2010 Global Innovation 1000, the sixth annual study of corporate innovation spending, released recently by global management consulting firm Booz & Company.

According to the study, the 1,000 companies that spent the most on research and development decreased their total R&D spending by 3.5 percent to $503 billion in 2009. This followed a relatively strong 2008 during which R&D spending continued to grow despite the recession.

At the same time, revenues for the Innovation 1000 plunged 11 percent from $15.1 trillion in 2008 to $13.4 trillion in 2009 – nearly three times the rate of decline in R&D spending. As a result, R&D intensity, or R&D spending as a percentage of revenue, actually increased – from 3.46 percent in 2008 to 3.75 percent in 2009. Compared to the 3.5 percent reduction in R&D spending, the 1,000 top R&D spenders cut much more deeply into both sales, general and administrative expenses (a 5.4 percent reduction), and capital expenditures (a 17.5 percent drop). Continue reading “Booz & Company Study: R&D Spending on the Decline” »

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Quanto tempo abbiamo perso

31/10/2010 / posted in Economy, News / No Comments

Credits: Panmind Labs

Mario Monti sul Corriere della Sera

Il tragico entertainment quotidiano offerto dai politici, seguito con passione dai cittadini che pure lo disprezzano, consente agli uni e agli altri di distrarsi. Altrimenti, bisognerebbe occuparsi di questioni più noiose. Ad esempio, del fatto che in altri Paesi si sta lavorando per preparare ai propri figli un’economia e una società dinamiche, non un Paese di cui a volte, pur amandolo, ci si vergogna.
Si prenda a caso. In Germania, è in corso una forte crescita spinta soprattutto dalle economie emergenti, con le quali l’industria tedesca ha realizzato un’integrazione solidissima ed egemone. In Gran Bretagna, il governo ha annunciato un profondo ridimensionamento del settore pubblico e dei trasferimenti per il welfare. Si noti che la governance più stringente del Patto di stabilità, pur alla luce di alcuni elementi più ampi di valutazione introdotti su proposta italiana, potrà richiedere anche all’Italia qualche severo riesame del bilancio pubblico nei prossimi anni. In Polonia, Paese che cresce velocemente sul piano economico e che ha ormai un peso politico nella Ue spesso superiore a quello dell’Italia, il governo ha promosso un dibattito pubblico su come rafforzare la crescita e migliorare la società da qui al 2030, non solo al 2020 come chiede la Ue (www.Poland2030.pl). Continue reading “Quanto tempo abbiamo perso” »

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Computing After the Crisis

26/10/2010 / posted in Economy, R&D / No Comments

by Giorgio De Michelis and Alfonso Fuggetta (lavoce.info)

Translated by Christine Starnes

Information and Communication Technology can play a central role in exiting the current crisis. However, the IT sector in Italy is going through a particulalry bad period at the same time as calling for an increase in public funding. The latter makes sense if its main objective is the overall growth of the market, both qualitatively and quantitatively. In particular, public assistance couldaccelerate the overall maturation of the supply side, but only if the IT sector uses fast, decisive, reliable measures of both stages and the whole amount.

Now that the crisis seems to have passed its most critical stage, the debate on an exit strategy is becoming more heated and ICT, Information and Communication Technology, is becoming a central theme.

A QUALITATIVE CRISIS

It is clear that, within the general crisis of the economonic system, ICT is going through a rather bad period with a decline in telecommunications (-2.5% in the first quarter of 2009 according to Airtech-Assinform) that has been even more strongly felt in computing (nothing short of -9% for the same period). Continue reading “Computing After the Crisis” »

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