German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Klaus Schwab (L), Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum, attend the opening of the Annual Meeting 2012 at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, January 25, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]

DAVOS, Switzerland - Delegates of the 2012 Davos Annual Meeting stressed the importance of innovation for companies on Wednesday.

Companies failing to adapt themselves to new business environment and refuse innovation will soon fall behind or even go out of business in today's world, said delegates participating in a special session titled "The Global Business Context."

Speaking at the session, Cisco Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John T. Chambers said, "We had about 100 great competitors in the 1990s, all but two are largely gone."

If a company continues to do what it has always been doing, it is going to be left behind, he said.

Panelists of the session estimated the life span of companies that are unable to change is around 15 years. The latest example is Kodak, which recently declared bankruptcy, they said.

Kodak, registered in 1888 in New York by inventor George Eastman, has been a household name for generations as it made photography accessible for the mass with the invention of handheld cameras.

But the company was on a losing streak since the late 1990s when fast-growing digital camera manufacturers started to grab the larger share of the market.