UK behind US and China in technology innovation, say business leaders

According to management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company Accenture which conducted the survey, 56% of business leaders believe the UK "lags behind" China and the US in technology innovation. Accenture conducted an online interview with 273 business decision makers from industries such as banking, retail, IT and telecoms and energy in April.

 Although more than two thirds (68%) of business leaders said their companies had "made a significant investment in innovation" over the past year and plan to continue doing so in the next 12 months, more said that they think it is "more important to be innovative for their employees (65%) than for their customers (51%)".

Most respondents (53%) said the UK needs to invest more in research and development, whilst just under half of those surveyed (49%) said that companies involved in innovative research should benefit from greater tax breaks. In addition, 42% and 41% of respondents respectively said that greater funding for universities for technology research purposes and attracting more people into studying subjects rooted in science, technology, engineering or maths would "help drive UK innovation". 

Only 4% of respondents said everyone within a business has a role to play in innovating, whilst 39% place the responsibility for driving technological innovation with a company's IT team. However, most of those surveyed (57%) said they do not believe that their business is leading the way in using new technologies. This is despite most respondents describing innovation as being "extremely important" to driving business success in IT (78%), financial management (58%) and operations (57%). 

According to the study, half of business leaders see investment in IT infrastructure and investment in training people in the use of technology as being "key success factors" for enabling technological innovation in business. A further 47% identified having a collaborate culture as being important to such innovation, whilst 41% said having incentives can help drive innovation.