• Special Report: Inside Innovation
• Slide Show: The World's 50 Most innovative Companies

In a climate when innovation efforts and research and development budgets are likely to see more scrutiny than ever, our 2008 list of the World's Most Innovative Companies adds three financial measures to the mix to determine the rankings. For this year's list, votes cast in the proprietary BusinessWeek-BCG survey received 80% of the overall weighting, stock returns were weighted 10%, while three-year revenue and margin growth each got 5%. While these changes -- only votes from our survey counted in the past -- marked the biggest shift yet in our rankings of the World's Most Innovative Companies, there are some similarities to previous years. Once again, Apple's design whizzes lead our list, followed by Google’s search geniuses and Toyota's hybrid car mavens. But the added financial metrics and the greater diversity of our survey, which polled more global and C-suite respondents than ever also helped to produce a few big changes. Global names such as Tata Group and Nintendo, both making their first appearance, landed in the top 10. Traditional innovation icon 3M plummeted from No. 7 to No. 22. And dark horses such as No. 18 General Motors, which has suffered through a tumultuous year financially, received a surprising number of votes thanks to concept cars like the electric Chevrolet Volt and the Detroit automaker's renewed focus on design. For a full explanation of our methodology, click here -- and see the footnotes at the bottom of the table.