Race condition between cost and innovation during recession

In today's global market, innovation is needed to cling on as the surface become slippery (market condition). Products and services launched seem to have a shorter life period. The contributor to this has been largely due to- i. people have mastered the art and science of fast coping with added value, ii. complete replacement (disruptive innovations), iii. people’s attention span for a particular offering or product is getting smaller. This leads to market race for companies. Recession has made the market race even tougher. Currently, recession has struck hard at all sectors of economy and business. In this situation it becomes even more important on how innovation can be managed. It seem in the past (last 2 decades) people in the west have known the importance of innovating continuously, while cost saving and optimal resource utilization has been the focus in the eastern parts of the world. In today’s context with recession across the globe there seems to be some kind of consensus in the business world that innovation and cost consideration will co-exist. Cost has to be down to a point that it can still deliver meaningful innovations. During recession people become very mindful about spending, innovations have to address the immediate needs of end consumer and not focus much on the luxury add-ons.