Is R&D taking too long?
03/11/2025
2 min
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R&D spending is exploding: in Europe, it will reach 352 billion euros in 2022, an increase of 48.5% in ten years. But this increase is not always yielding the expected results, explains Maud VAN DEN BROEKE, professor of operations and supply chain management at IÉSEG.
How can R&D productivity be made profitable? In many sectors, this is becoming a crucial issue. Manufacturers, in particular, have to adapt their offer in the face of regulatory changes. The tech industry, for its part, is constantly being turned upside down by technological breakthroughs such as AI. But the more complex products become, the longer it takes to design them, with no guarantee of success: a giant like Apple spends more than 30% of its net income on R&D without seeing its profits grow at the same rate.
“To get round this difficulty, some companies are betting on open innovation,” explains VAN DEN BROEKE. The idea is to work with external partners – companies, suppliers, even competitors – to share costs and speed up processes. In the automotive industry, alliances are multiplying, as illustrated by the collaboration between BMW and Tata Technologies or Honda and IBM.
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Maud Van den Broeke (IÉSEG School of Management, LEM-CNRS 9221, France) is a Professor in the Operations and Supply Chain Management Department. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2016 from KU Leuven and Vlerick Business School (Belgium). She was a laureate of the Franz Edelman Award 2017 for achievement in Operations Research and Management Sciences.
