The CTOs of global industrial and manufacturing groups with technology-intensive products and services will tell you that despite the undeniable importance of startups and other external innovation ecosystem partners, internal R&D still needs to be at the core of the innovation effort. External parties are usually unable to make the necessary resource investments for long-term, core R&D. Moreover, maintain­ing leading competencies in core technology areas is usually vital to sustaining competitive advantage. However, as we explore in this Advisor, there are multiple challenges in the traditional way of aligning R&D strategy and program activities.