This article investigates the Innovation Union Scoreboard (IUS) as a tool to carry out case studies about national innovation capacities in the case of given countries. It clarifies what this statistical framework can offer in terms of information and insights on strengths and weaknesses of a given country relative to the other countries which are also involved in this statistical exercise. The investigation is carried out through the case study of Switzerland; a country that is leading the IUS ranking for many years. The approach will therefore start with the full analysis of the IUS results for Switzerland. Then other statistical evidence as well as qualitative insights will be added to the discussion to identify what really matters to explain success and the potential weaknesses the Swiss policy should care about. The conclusion is that if the IUS can be considered as an important tool to inform innovation policies, it should not be applied in an isolated manner or without relying on other types of indicators and information on the system considered.