The 2026
Innovation Outlook
How High-Growth Companies Innovate
Leaders
vs. Laggards
Using our Leaders vs. Laggards analytical framework — comparing companies with breakaway revenue growth against those with below-average growth — we identify four distinct innovation practices that consistently separate the haves from the have-nots.
How High-Growth Companies Innovate
Our data reveals four clear dimensions of innovation practice where Leaders and Laggards diverge most sharply and consistently. Each of these practices reinforces the others, creating a virtuous cycle that explains and perpetuates the revenue growth performance gap.
What Can Laggards Do?
Leaders' innovation practices may sound like common sense, and to a large extent, they are. The reason so few companies actually practice them lies in a structural problem that affects most organizations: the presence of two disconnected growth systems operating in parallel, without sufficient integration.
