The Thales Research Technology and Innovation (RTI) team in the UK has scored an industry milestone by achieving Investor in Innovations accreditation with NEF: The Innovation Institute.
Investor in Innovations is an industry-backed standard that benchmarks and validates the strength of innovation capability and associated processes within an organisation, providing an integrated framework for continual improvement that optimises returns on innovation investment.
Photograph shows (left to right): Professor Sa’ad Medhat, Dr Alvin Wilby, Dr Terry O’Sullivan and Sarah Campbell.
Thales’ RTI team exploits a broad range and scope of innovation across the company’s UK businesses operating in different industry sectors in order to drive profitable and sustainable growth, whilst maximising customer and stakeholder benefits. The team facilitates a range of partnerships with industry, academia and SMEs, as well as other sources of innovation and emerging technologies.
NEF’s Investor in Innovations accreditation benchmarked the RTI team’s approach against the performance of competitors and industry leaders. During a consultation process that engaged with customers as well as employees, the team was evaluated against six criteria:
Strategy and Alignment
Organisational Readiness
Core Capabilities and Technologies
Industry Foresight
Client Awareness
Impact and Value
Having successfully achieved the accreditation, Thales has agreed a robust action plan with NEF: The Innovation Institute to take its strategy to the next level. The company is now extending its innovation accreditation across its business portfolio in the UK. This will ensure that innovation remains central to the Thales value proposition and that the company continues to be the desired innovation partner for critical business challenges.
Thales received recognition for this milestone achievement during NEF’s annual Innovisions conference at the Institute of Directors on Thursday (3rd December) where Drs Terry O’Sullivan and Alvin Wilby, the Head and Vice President of Research and Technology at Thales in the UK, were presented the Investor in Innovations award by BBC Royal Correspondent Sarah Campbell and NEF’s Chief Executive Professor Sa’ad Medhat.
Dr Wilby said:
"This is a great achievement for the UK RTI community and demonstrates our class leading innovation capability. As we continue to drive innovation at the heart of our strategy, we will continue to see benefit to the business; developing partnerships, increasing the rate of new ideas, the adoption of new thinking, approaches and technologies - these will deliver future growth, increase profitability and boost our market share.”
NEF Chief Executive Professor Sa’ad Medhat said:
“Illustrating impact and value from innovation investment is not always easy. Thales’ RTI team has demonstrated a clear capability to stimulate and deliver innovation leadership. Thales is now using the Investor in Innovation framework to create a coherent approach to its innovation strategy that can help the company to achieve its growth ambitions.
“We look forward to working with Thales over the course of this three-year accreditation, supporting the development and refinement of its exciting and evolving strategy.”
