Innovating for Global Growth – Seven Takeaways from the 2016 European Strategy Leadership Summit

About 100 senior Euro 500 executives from 20 countries, representing a wide range of industries, convened in Venice on April 28 and 29 for BCG’s seventh European Strategy Leadership Summit. This year, with companies facing the twin challenges of an uncertain global economic environment and continuing digital disruption, the theme of the gathering was “Innovating for Growth: From Emerging to Mature Markets.” The sense that emerged was that while growth is now harder to achieve, it’s not impossible. Benetton CEO Marco Airoldi provided a case in point, describing his team’s efforts to reignite growth for the storied retailer. Finding good growth just requires thoughtfulness, more innovative approaches, and discipline. Here are seven takeaways from the various sessions.

1. Growth requires an exploratory mindset
2. Remember “2, 20, 80, 150″
3. The most successful innovators are investing to become faster, leaner, and more digital—and are expanding their focus beyond the core.
4. Emerging markets remain an essential source of growth, but capturing that growth is more challenging.
5. Multinational companies need to develop strategies to counter increasingly potent emerging-market rivals.
6. There is more than one way to map demand.
7. Advanced analytics and machine learning will play an increasingly important role in innovation.

Read full report here:
https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/growth-innovation-seven-takeaways-from-2016-european-strategy-leadership-summit/?linkId=24224431