The lack of consensus on the definition of innovation could lead to different interpretations affecting the understanding and relevance of innovation in business. Business strategy needs innovation because innovation is a key element that that clearly improves performance when applied. Up to three-quarters of productivity development in European industry can be attributed to innovation, and companies that apply innovation in their strategies show better performance. Innovation is a fundamental pillar of business strategy; it is not just a technological project, it is a culture, a mindset, a tool that provides competitive value to the company and added value to customers.

Business innovation needs its own strategy in order to be ready for firm sustainability and competitiveness. Innovation strategy is a set of actions that drive all procedures and guidelines in an organization to generate and manage innovations toward achieving the business objectives. It involves planning, prioritizing, and developing the right types of innovation (technological or not) ensuring the appropriate resources, knowledge, capabilities, and organizational structure, among others. It is important not to manage an innovation strategy in isolation or independently of the rest of the company’s functions. Innovation strategy should be based on corporate strategy and understood as an integral component of long-term strategic business management. With innovation strategy, a company can control and manage the generation of innovation, even though few companies have a clear innovation strategy.

It is positive to incorporate innovation strategy into business strategy to be better placed to compete in terms of differentiation, productivity and economic growth, and to achieve better financial results. This Final Work for the Master in Innovation and Digital Transformation, analyses different innovation strategies and their possible influential factors.

Coinciding with the twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of the UOC, the following article aims to review the main transformations that the basic areas of business have undergone over the past two and a half decades. For this, we have enjoyed the participation of five female and five male professors in the studies of economy and business, who have given us some broad strokes on some of the main changes during this period and the challenges still to come. These topics are: leadership, decision-making, internationalization, digitalization, strategy, adaptation to change, ethics, corporate social responsibility, diversity, inclusion, business modal innovation, and finance.

Business simulations or business games are increasingly used in classrooms around the world. This paper presents some concepts related to the growing use of gamification in the
classroom and proposes a terminology to help ensure their dissemination in a clear manner. The main advantages of the use of serious games in a teaching environment are presented in the results of an investigation that permanently studies the impact of the use of business simulations in the skills of the participants. The main advantages of the use of serious games in an educational environment are the ability to extend and deepen the knowledge acquired by participants through problem solving and decision making in real time, without affecting decisions or any critical key resources, and give more confidence to the participants to make critical decisions in the future. In the coming years, we will see an extension of the process of gamification and the use of simulators in teaching environments.