Far ahead of other developing and developed economies of the world, India Inc is assigning strategic priority to innovation. Around 91 per cent of the Senior Executives put innovation among the top 3 strategic priorities," a joint India Innovation Survey by CII and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) revealed.

However, the BCG Global Survey, 2006 found only 71 per cent of the companies' globally assigned innovation such a high strategic priority.

The survey results have been compared with the BCG Global Survey to assess the Indian companies vis--vis the global ones, the chamber statement said.

A majority 89 per cent of the respondents said the importance of innovation has increased significantly over the last 10 years and 39 per cent of them felt that innovation has become critical to their organisation.

Only 7 per cent felt the importance of innovation has increased only marginally and 4 per cent felt that its importance has remained the same.

Of the respondents, 74 per cent of the companies are planning to increase the funds invested in innovation.

However, 60 per cent of them were not satisfied with the returns.

The biggest drawback as revealed by the survey is a gap between creating an innovation strategy and managing innovation as a business process.