The measurement of innovation power in businesses and a local research in agriculture & food industry

In today?s terms economic growth and competitiveness are based on innovation increasingly. Countries need innovative initiatives and also pioneer companies in this field for being included to international race and attaining competitive advantage. These companies have to apply right measurements and incentives, and have to generate right attitude with right strategies both inside and outside the company to make innovation is managed.For a healthy process of innovation management, it is very important to perform a serious planning and implementation, to create awareness of innovation inside the company, to bring innovation into the corporate culture and to measure the power of innovation at regular intervals in this process. In the principle of `You cannot manage, what you cannot measure?, with the data and feedback that obtain through measurements, businesses can be determine their strengths and weaknesses in this field and they can provide continuity a successful innovation process.In the first part of this study, prepared for the purpose of measuring the innovation power in companies, the innovation concept, its features, types, the related concepts and issues; in the second part some of the innovation measurement models that had been improved in the world; and in the third part Arthur D.Little?s, which is the world?s first and oldest management consulting firm, innovation measurement model named Innovation Excellence, created by translating, has been analyzed in detailed. In the last part, Arthur D.Little?s another innovation model has been built by translating again and has been practiced in the agriculture and food sectors in Salihli. Then the data which obtained from the surveys have been analyzed, interpreted and suggestions have been made.Keywords: Innovation, Innovation Management, Strategy, Competition, Technology.