How can you communicate the impact of your R&D portfolio?

1 Define your impact criteria

Before you can communicate the impact of your R&D portfolio, you need to define what impact means for your organization and your products. This will depend on your objectives, industry, and context. For instance, you may want to evaluate the influence of your R&D portfolio on revenue growth and profitability, customer satisfaction and retention, market share and differentiation, social and environmental benefits, and intellectual property and innovation capabilities. It is essential to select the most relevant and meaningful impact criteria for your R&D portfolio and determine how you will measure and track them over time. Additionally, it is important to align your impact criteria with your stakeholders' expectations and interests while ensuring they are clear and transparent.

2 Prioritize your R&D projects

Once you have defined your impact criteria, you can use them to prioritize your R&D projects and allocate your resources accordingly. With many ideas and opportunities for R&D, it is important to focus on those with the highest potential for impact and that fit with your strategic vision and capabilities. To do this, you may want to use a portfolio matrix like the one proposed by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). This matrix classifies R&D projects into four categories based on their market attractiveness and competitive strength: stars (high-impact projects that have a strong market position and growth potential), cash cows (low-impact projects that have a stable market position and generate steady cash flow), question marks (uncertain projects that have a weak market position but high growth potential), and dogs (low-impact projects that have a weak market position and low growth potential). The goal is to balance your R&D portfolio across these four categories, investing more in the stars and question marks while harvesting the cash cows and divesting the dogs.

3 Communicate your R&D story

The final step to communicate the impact of your R&D portfolio is to tell a compelling story that showcases your achievements, challenges, and opportunities. Instead of merely presenting data and numbers, explain the rationale, context, and value of your R&D projects. Additionally, emphasize how your R&D portfolio supports your mission, vision, and values, as well as how it creates value for customers, stakeholders, and society. To help you communicate your R&D story, there are a number of tools such as a roadmap illustrating milestones and outcomes, a dashboard summarizing performance and progress, a case study demonstrating the impact of a project or product, a testimonial capturing customer feedback and satisfaction, or a pitch conveying your vision and goals. When crafting your R&D story, tailor it to your audience and use the right format, language, and tone. Invite feedback and questions from listeners to engage in dialogue.

4 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?