Authors: KATERINA PANAGIOTOPOULOU

Title: Integrating innovative business strategies and management control systems in today’s business

Abstract

Innovation is undoubtedly the most important weapon of a company in its struggle to differentiate itself from competition and survive. However, a company that innovates takes a significant risk that usually translates into time, effort and money investment.  Successful innovations may create new needs, so demanding, that the company is unable to manage. That is the case where the bite has entered very deep into the fork, the case that an unexpected success can cause an ever greater unexpected failure. All of this creates a lot of uncertainty and anxiety that make it hard to see clearly our possible choices, to evaluate them properly and to prioritize them. The fear of a possible failure narrows our sight and attention, preventing us from looking at the opportunities that lie ahead, making us see only a small square instead of the whole chessboard. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the competitive advantage gained when innovative business strategies and management control systems are applied in today’s business. The nature of innovation is analyzed in detail and obstacles that may occur while trying to innovate are presented. The methodology is divided into two sections. Initially, a literature study is performed followed by a survey in the form of a structured questionnaire which explores the opinion of Athenian companies on innovative business activity.