Systematically shaping innovation
✓ Insights from 10,000 corporate analyses
✓ TOP 100 innovation leaders as a data basis
✓ 40+ practical case studies
✓ Checklists and benchmarks
✓ For entrepreneurs & executives
How Companies Systematically Design Innovation
✓ Findings from 10.000 company analyses
✓ 40+ case studies
✓ Checklists and benchmarks
✓ For entrepreneurs & managers
“A brilliantly useful book.” (Eric von Hippel, MIT) “Scientifically sound, practical, and full of compelling examples.” (Stefan Thomke, Harvard Business School)
“Our prosperity is based on science and technology: through innovation.” (Christian Wulff, former President of Germany) “The grammar of the new.” (Ranga Yogeshwar, science journalist and author)
The four building blocks of innovation capability
Top Management & Leadership
sets the direction, creates room for maneuver, and makes innovation a top priority
Organization & Processes
ensure that ideas do not get lost in the shuffle of everyday life, but are instead systematically developed and implemented
Culture & Climate
create an environment in which employees dare to try new things, learn from mistakes, and take responsibility
External Orientation & Open Innovation
open the company to the ideas, knowledge, and experience of customers, partners, start-ups, and research institutions
Recent CEO surveys (including the PwC Global CEO Survey 2026) reveal a paradox: innovation is among the highest strategic priorities and a decisive success factor in global competition. At the same time, many business leaders see significant deficits in their company's ability to successfully develop and establish new products, services, and business models.
How does one systematically build innovation capability? This book is based on more than 10,000 corporate analyses from the TOP 100 innovation competition – arguably the world's most extensive database on the innovation capability of companies. Its central insight: innovation is no accident. Innovation capability is the result of a system of four interlocking elements.
The analyzed TOP 100 companies generate about half of their revenue and profit from innovations from the last three years – about six times as much as average companies. They grow faster, survive more frequently, and achieve long-term corporate performance that is more than 300 percent above the average.
What you can expect from this book
What this book is not
- A scientific textbook
- A collection of heroic stories about brilliant founders or exceptional individual cases
- An opinion-based book founded on personal convictions
What this book is
- A practice-oriented management book for entrepreneurs, managing directors, board members, and those responsible for innovation and strategy
- Based on more than 10,000 company analyses, benchmarking data, and insights from international innovation research
- Concrete guidance for practice: Over 40 case studies and checklists show what innovation leaders do differently and how the innovation capability of one's own organization can be systematically developed
Praise for the book
"For medium-sized enterprises, innovation is not an end in itself, but a decisive prerequisite for remaining competitive, tapping into new markets, and creating value within Germany. New products and processes do not emerge by chance, but through the complex interplay of leadership, high-performance structures and processes, an open corporate culture, and receptiveness to ideas and collaborations. This book helps the reader navigate the complex web of the latest insights in
innovation management."
Christoph Ahlhaus,
Chairman of the Federal Executive Board of the BVMW (German Association for Small and Medium-sized Businesses) and
President of the European Entrepreneurs CEA-PME
"Based on an analysis of over 10,000 companies, Nikolaus Franke and Rudolf Dömötör show what innovation leaders really do differently. Scientifically grounded, practical, and inspiring – a powerful book for anyone who wants to shape innovation systematically."
Oliver Gassmann,
University of St. Gallen, author of "The Business Model Navigator"
"During my many years on the TOP 100 jury, I have encountered impressive companies in every category: future-oriented, positive, and with a genuine drive to shape the future. With their analysis of over 10,000 cases, Franke and Dömötör substantiate what I have seen time and again—innovation is not a coincidence, but a leadership task."
Lars Hinrichs,
Cinco Capital, Founder of XING
"This book convincingly demonstrates that the ability to innovate is not a matter of chance, but can be systematically designed and organized. I find the combination of an exceptionally broad empirical basis with concrete benchmarks and practical recommendations for action to be particularly valuable."
Hermann Simon,
Founder and Honorary Chairman of Simon-Kucher, author of "Hidden Champions"
"Innovation is too important to be left to chance. This book shows leaders concretely how they can create the conditions under which innovation repeatedly occurs—scientifically grounded, practical, and with many compelling examples."
Stefan Thomke,
Harvard Business School, Author of "The Scientific Mindset"
“Innovation is not magic, and it is not luck. Franke and Dömötör show how companies can systematically build the capabilities that make innovation happen again and again. Grounded in an extraordinary dataset of more than 10,000 company analyses and filled with fascinating real-world examples, this is a brilliantly useful book for anyone who wants to understand - and manage - innovation.”
Eric von Hippel,
MIT Sloan School of Management
“Our prosperity is based on science and technology: through innovation. Impressively demonstrated by the 2025 Nobel laureates in economics. Throughout his academic career, Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke has studied the most innovative small and medium-sized enterprises and their various secrets to success. His collected insights and experiences are now being published at a time when democratic, creative economies urgently need to generate growth against the backdrop of demographic and geopolitical changes. Much of this is highly recommended for emulation.”
Christian Wulff,
Former President of Germany
"Innovations change our lives profoundly – and never before has this happened at such a pace. The new is no longer the exception; it has become a permanent state. In their book, Nikolaus Franke and Rudolf Dömötör describe the rules by which this new culture of innovation functions – the grammar of the new."
Ranga Yogeshwar,
Science journalist and author
Case Studies
Hidden champions, start-ups, family businesses: More than 40 case studies demonstrate how the principles of this book work in practice. They come from a wide variety of industries and company sizes and cover all four system elements – from top management and organization to culture and external focus. Each case study illustrates how a specific company has implemented the principles for itself.
Top Management and Leadership
- Top management at NanoTemper: Focus on innovation instead of operational hectic
CAS Software: Top management as a network hub- Shaping and questioning strategies: How Andrea Pink identifies and leverages global changes
- Strategic clarity instead of control: Greenflash
MAWA: Consistent innovation orientation for a low-involvement commodity
Aumüller Aumatic: What a role model can achieve
FENECON: Strategy as a compass in a constantly changing market- Innovation needs resources – the ROWE case
Organization and Processes
- Organization doesn't follow trends: How IBYKUS found the right structure for innovation
- Decentralized centers: How Uhlmann bundles and distributes responsibility for innovation
- 2-pizza teams instead of silo mentality: How Active Fiber Systems organizes complex innovation projects
- How to synchronize technology and market orientation: Hauff-Technik
- Decide clearly instead of endless coordinating: How Kübler manages innovation
- The Concorde: The prestige project that wasn 't allowed to die
Burger Group: Innovative system products through a hybrid of market and integration- Flocks of birds as a model for an agile organization: TESVOLT
- From gold prospector to shovel seller: How Neodigital turns process innovation into a growth lever
- AI as a tool instead of a silver bullet: How ehotel uses artificial intelligence pragmatically
Culture and Climate
- Innovation is exemplified: How Peter Huber makes innovation a culture
- Zero Barrier: How mymediset avoids friction in the idea process
- The duty to fail: How EXPRESSO turns failed attempts into innovation
Loss Aversion Bias: Why people often misjudge risks- The art of the intelligent mistake: How the Schreiner Group combines innovation and quality
- Innovation through virtual exchange: The "dream team" of net-and-phone
- Architecture as an innovation tool at DATASEC: Why no one sits in the Eames chair
- From feel-good management to innovation community: How itemis activates innovation potential
- Personal responsibility as innovation culture: How rising systems turns employees into co-entrepreneurs
- Innovation culture as a magnet for talent: How attempto wins the best minds
External Orientation and Open Innovation
- How to bring the customer perspective into the company: coac
- Why companies often reject good ideas from the outside
Pyramiding: How to find lead users- A hundred thousand ways to your own motor: Nanotec turns customers into designers
- Innovation through exchange: How MPDV uses its user community
- Customer journeys as management of complex customer systems: How DiHeSys develops from the market
- Start-ups instead of operational blindness: How NSB uses external start-up culture for innovation
- How ELEMENT 3-5 makes science an innovation partner
- Turning conflicting goals into win-win situations: The open innovation ecosystem of the WU Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
- The innovation ecosystem as a business model: How EintrachtTech orchestrates external partners
- The alliance of progressives: How STEApS is tapping into an innovation-skeptical market
- Pilot customers instead of presentations: How Nanostone convinced a conservative market
- Developing a market instead of just selling products: How Baldus established nitrous oxide sedation in the DACH region
“An exceptionally broad empirical basis with concrete benchmarks and practical recommendations for action.” (Hermann Simon, founder of Simon-Kucher)
"A strong book for anyone who wants to shape innovation systematically." (Oliver Gassmann, University of St. Gallen) "Innovation is not a coincidence, but a leadership task." (Lars Hinrichs, Cinco Capital, Founder XING)
About the authors
© KD Busch
Nikolaus Franke
Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke founded the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business in 2001 and has led it ever since. His research focuses on innovation, entrepreneurship, and the question of how companies can find new ideas and turn them into economic success. His findings have been published in international academic journals and have received numerous awards. He attaches particular importance to the interface between science and practice. He is convinced that research should not only be scientifically sound but also practically relevant and understandable. Accordingly, he works closely with companies, entrepreneurs, and innovators. The insights gained from this work form the basis of this book.
Rudolf Dömötör
Dr. Rudolf Dömötör is the Director of the WU Entrepreneurship Center and Managing Director of WU Ignite Ventures, the start-up investment arm of the Vienna University of Economics and Business. In his work, he focuses on how entrepreneurial thinking develops and how innovation can be fostered across disciplinary and institutional boundaries. The Entrepreneurship Center Network, which he leads and which connects 36 Austrian universities and universities of applied sciences, is an expression of this conviction. He laid his scientific foundation as a doctoral candidate under Prof. Franke, where he empirically investigated the success factors of innovative medium-sized companies. In addition to networking, he is passionate about supporting start-ups and spin-offs. The insights gained from years of collaboration with Prof. Franke form the basis of this book.
© KD Busch