From the Wharton School of Business comes the following:

These days almost every company worth its balance sheet insists that it invests in “innovation.” But does it make or lose money on these investments? That is a tougher question — and one that James Andrew and Harold Sirkin tackle in their new book titled, Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation. According to the authors, who are senior vice presidents and directors of The Boston Consulting Group, a new idea is just an invention — and not a true innovation — unless it generates financial returns. “Thousands of good ideas exist within every organization, even those that don’t think of themselves as innovative,” they write. “The real problem these companies have is how to turn their ideas into cash.”

That is where Payback hopes to help. Andrew and Sirkin believe that in order to profit from their innovations, companies need to develop a process to collect, screen and nurture new ideas and “commercialize and realize them in a way that achieves payback.” They explain concepts such as the “cash curve” — which lets firms track and manage the innovation process — and the “cash trap” — which refers to supposedly innovative products that perpetually hemorrhage cash. In an interview with Knowledge@Wharton, Sirkin discusses these and several other challenges companies face as they seek to innovate and — hopefully — make a few bucks along the way.

You can learn more about the book, read a brief transcript of an interview with the authors, and access the podcast here.