Booz & Company has just released the results of its 2013 Global Innovation 1000 Study: Navigating the Digital Future. The co-authors of the report are Barry Jaruzelski, John Loehr, and Richard Holman. To read and/or download the complete report, please click here.

To learn more about Booz & Company, please click here.

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This year’s list of the most innovative companies, as identified by our survey respondents, reflects the increasing importance of digitally oriented companies whose innovation efforts are transforming our working and personal lives.
Apple continues to lead the list, for the fourth year running (see Exhibit F). The company boosted its R&D spending by almost US$1 billion this year, to $3.4 billion, raising its rank among the Global Innovation 1000 from 53rd to 43rd. But its innovation intensity remained at just 2.2 percent, thanks largely to the impressive $157 billion it took in this year. However, Apple has also seen its share price fluctuate significantly, due in part to the fact that its iPhone market share has come under increasing pressure from Android phones, and that it has not developed a new killer product in quite a while. Perhaps as a result, just 62 percent of respondents named Apple as the top innovator this year, down considerably from the 80 percent who did so last year. But the company remains strong, and time will tell how it responds to rising pressures.

Google held steady at number two; half of respondents mentioned it, up 7 percentage points from last year. 3M fell to number five, overtaken by Samsung for the number three spot. Samsung’s steady climb up the list makes clear that it is not a mere copier of innovations pioneered by other companies. With its Galaxy smartphone, Smart TV, and other inventive products, the company is proving capable of designing devices and equipment almost as crowd-pleasing as Apple’s. Amazon, meanwhile, leaped from number 10 last year to number four. The company’s skill as an innovator no longer rests solely on the new ideas it brings to online retailing; its cloud service offerings are, by some accounts, more successful than those of the company’s many rivals.

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Barry Jaruzelski is a senior partner with Booz & Company in Florham Park, N.J., and the global leader of the firm’s engineered products and services practice. He created the Global Innovation 1000 study in 2005, and continues to lead the research. He works with high-tech and industrial clients on corporate and product strategy and the transformation of core innovation processes

John Loehr is a partner with Booz & Company based in Chicago, and is the global leader of the firm’s innovation practice. He works with automotive, industrial, and technology companies to help them build competitive innovation capabilities and to resolve critical decisions in their product and market strategies.

Richard Holman is a partner with Booz & Company based in Florham Park, N.J. As a senior leader of the firm’s innovation practice, he works with clients in highly engineered products sectors such as aerospace, industrials, high tech, and healthcare on innovation capability building, new product development efficiency and effectiveness, and product management.

Also contributing to this article were s+b contributing editor Edward H. Baker and Booz & Company senior associate Stefan Luckner and senior analyst Jennifer Ding.