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Executives must decide which IT innovation "waves" to catch & #8212; and which ones to let roll by.

When consumers feel that their choices are restricted, many respond by leaving the market leader.

To gain leverage from ever-improving technologies, companies need new processes and business models.

MIT Sloan Management Review and the Boston Consulting Group recently conducted their third annual sustainability survey of executives and managers worldwide. The survey results indicate that an increasing number of managers and companies are taking sustainable business practices seriously. According to the survey data, 70% of companies that have placed sustainability on their management agenda have done so in the past six years, and 20% have done so just in the past two years. Two-thirds of respondents said that sustainability was critically important to being competitive in today’s marketplace, up from 55% in the 2010 survey. And despite ongoing economic uncertainty, many companies are increasing their commitments to sustainability initiatives. In fact, 31% of respondents said their companies are profiting from sustainable business practices. Some of the interest can be explained by increasing pressure, internally and externally. Among the external factors are stakeholder groups–including investors–and also regulations, climate change, resource constraints and consumer demand. Internal demands for brand integrity, employee engagement and increased efficiencies play a part as well. But the recent increase in the business focus on sustainability may also be because we are nearing a “tipping point” at which a critical mass of companies is taking sustainability seriously. Survey and interview data identified companies that are profiting from sustainability, which the authors termed “Harvesters.” Harvesters are 50% more likely to have a CEO with a strong commitment to sustainability, and nearly two and a half times as likely to have a chief sustainability officer. They are also more likely to be involved in external collaborations. Starbucks, for example, brought in representatives from its entire supply chain, government officials and an MIT professor in order to develop a detailed assessment of and life-cycle analysis for take-out coffee cups.

What increases the chance of "retweeting," so company tweets are shared with recipients' networks?

Dave Stangis, VP of Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability for Campbell Soup, believes that setting "big, hairy, audacious goals" is necessary to set up the kind of tension needed to motivate and inspire the people who need to reach them. Formerly the Director of Sustainability at Intel, he was able to build on his knowledge and bring a wealth of experience when he was hired into his new position at Campbell three years ago. Setting the right goals and metrics is important, but so is getting buy-in and support across the organization. Stangis says it's critical to have top-level CEO involvement, and to establish governance structures that work. He talked with MIT Sloan Management Review's Managing Editor Nina Kruschwitz about the kinds of language and conversations that propel a sustainability agenda, the benefits of engaged employees, and using stakeholder conversations to see into the future.

How are organizations moving from a "provide and pray" approach in social business to a strategic and purpose-driven one? In an interview with Executive Editor David Kiron, Mark McDonald and Anthony Bradley, both of Gartner, and authors of The Social Organization, discuss some of the frameworks they've developed to move companies along the social business path. McDonald and Bradley say that movement along their "six-F" continuum fear, folly, and flippant to formulating, forging, and fusing has been rapid in the last few years. Executives are understanding the value and potential of becoming a social business. But they are still struggling with devising a strategy to get there. The key, McDonald and Bradley say, is to have a purpose, a well-defined purpose, around which a community will rally, engage and participate. It's participation anchored by purpose that delivers value to the business.

When Paul Barth and Randy Bean launched NewVantage Partners in 2000, most organizations were not paying a lot of attention to data and analytics. That's changed. As internal customers realize its value of data, the demand for access to the flood of accumulated data has risen almost as quickly as the issues of security and governance surrounding it. Though many organizations' analytics projects are CIO-driven, the partners have seen more success when organizations "start in the middle" with a "real tangible business problem." Solving something quickly, that gives quantifiable results, can help build a data management practice that ultimately influences the entire enterprise. Then organizations can begin to gain the kind of competitive advantage that analytics promises. Barth and Bean spoke with David Kiron, executive editor at MIT Sloan Management Review, about the importance of governance policies and structures, the role of culture in the success of initiatives, and the promise of value that many organizations are realizing from their analytics' innovations.

The key to open innovation? Ensuring outside ideas reach the people best equipped to exploit them.

This is the third year that MIT Sloan Management Review has teamed up with the Boston Consulting Group on their Sustainability and Innovation Global Executive survey, to which more than 4,700 executives, managers and thought leaders from around the world responded. Results from this year's survey--conducted during June and July of 2011--indicate a growing interest in sustainability on the part of businesses. More respondents this year than last believe that sustainability- related strategies are necessary to be competitive. Respondents said their organizations are committing more money and attention to sustainability--and anticipate a continuing commitment in the coming year. The authors suggest that these findings indicate that sustainability is becoming an element on the agenda of top management. However, in the short run, sustainability is often eclipsed by other pressing business issues: Most survey respondents do not consider sustainability-related topics to be one of the top three business challenges their company faces in the next two years. The charts in this preview article represent the answers to just seven of the survey's 27 questions. The full report will be published this winter.