For Software Firms, Operational Skill Is Key to Avoiding Failure

The best way for a software firm to increase its survival chances is not to boost R&D or marketing skills but to increase its operating capability - its knack for efficiently deploying people and capital, according to researchers led by Shanling Li of The Desautels Faculty of Management of McGill University. Their study of 870 U.S. software companies over the period 1995-2007 shows that companies with high levels of innovation-related competitive actions but low operating capability were 466% more likely to fail than the average.

Harvard Business Review - The Daily Stat, October 13, 2010