Transforming Innovation Ecosystems
Totti Könnölä, CEO of IFI attended the Foresight Methodology Workshop of the Mineral Intelligence Capacity Analysis Project (H2020) organised by La Palma Research Centre in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Spain between 10 and 11 May, 2017.
The Center for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI) and Zabala Innovation Consulting have organized on June 1, 2017 in the Hall of the Center for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI) the Conference “New Innovation Models in the European Industry”. The event aimed to showcase the most relevant systems and innovation models of European industry. Totti Könnölä, CEO of the Insight Foresight Institute, talked about innovation ecosystems.
The conference has been organized as part of the European project “Industrial Innovation in Transition” which aims to analyze on the one hand the best and most advanced practices of innovation that are giving in European industry, and by others and the administrations are providing appropriate policies and solutions to support companies in the adoption and use of practice names.
The event is aimed at any organization interested in learning new models of innovation.
Insight Foresight Institute has prepared a research on corporate innovation in Spain in connection with the E2I2 Forum (Education, Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Investment) coordinated by the Royal Academy of Engineering. The project consisted of: i) a study of the literature on intrapreneurship, innovation and corporate entrepreneurship, iii) verification of the data with public material, and iv) the final report.
There are several ways to approach entrepreneurship in corporations in Spain:
1. Do not carry out these activities: 9 companies of those consulted. Fundamentally in the Media sector and in the project oriented companies.
2. Intrapreneurship promotion: 17 companies consulted. Fundamentally based on employee ideas competitions.
3. Encourage external entrepreneurship: 16 companies consulted. Investment in new companies, customer cooperation, external ideas competitions, event sponsorship.
Based on the quantitative indicators consulted, it has been verified that some differences in the concrete dimensions that have been interesting to highlight (Image 1):
• Companies focused on the development and sale of products / services in front of companies focused on client projects (turnkey, tenders, etc …).
• Companies with corporate headquarters in Spain against subsidiaries of foreign companies.
Figure 1. Distribution of companies interviewed according to type of sales and location of corporate headquarters.
The behavior regarding entrepreneurship, ideas management and innovation offers some nuances according to the quadrant that is observed (Image 2).
Figure 2. Positioning of the interviewed companies regarding their activities of ideas management, innovation and entrepreneurship.
Barriers perceived in companies to innovate can be grouped into external barriers, such as: (i) low entrepreneurial culture at country level; (ii) deficiencies in the education system and knowledge generation; (iii) poor public support and regulatory constraints; and (iv) difficulties in the financing of these activities, and internal barriers such as (i) Enterprise culture and vertical structures. Excessive internal bureaucracy; (ii) Financial bias in decision-making. Lack of innovation indicators and iii) Operational problems: Selection of non-entrepreneurial personnel and unchanging processes.
It can be concluded that there is great predisposition to entrepreneurship and innovation but little radical and disruptive innovation. Companies have specific units of high level corporate innovation, but also innovation in vertical units. The importance of ecosystem management is recognized. Intrapreneurship activities are carried out without specific remuneration in most cases. If it occurs, in kind and promotion. There is a broad interest in indicators: i) Process: efficiency and effectiveness of projects, ii) Strategic: most used, iii) Financial: main interest. Limitations by traceability.
To know the concrete results of the study, send us an email: info@if-institute.org
José Manuel Leceta, General Manager of Red.es, and Totti Könnölä, CEO of Insight Foresight Institute write on their experiences on the EIT. The article was presented in the seminar “Growth ecosystems as a tool in the new industrial and innovation policy” organised by by SITRA and Ministry of Economy and Employment of Finland.
Established economies face major challenges in renewing their industrial basis, apparent in Europe that is struggling over decades in turning research into innovation. Policy experimentation in the periphery of government and power structures may offer opportunities for radically new policy and governance models and practices. Herein, the ‘European Institute of Innovation and Technology’ (EIT) is a relatively new policy experiment for entrepreneurial innovation. Created in 2008, the EIT operates through socalled ‘Knowledge and Innovation Communities’ (KICs) which integrate partners from the Knowledge Triangle of higher education, research and business, encompassing bottomup ‘co-creation’ of novel innovation models for Pan-European entrepreneurial innovation ecosystems. While the high political profile of the EIT has constrained partly its freedom to experiment, European-wide networked excellence approach and business logic in managing KICs has created new insights on experimental governance models to be explored further. Building on action research case study the paper codifies some of these developments and opens up an avenue for further work on the experimental governance of Pan-European entrepreneurial innovation ecosystems.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation TEKES and the Finnish Innovation Fund SITRA organised in autumn 2016 an international workshop to compile international research data on developing ecosystems. Totti Könnölä, CEO of Insight Foresight Institute, presented the paper “Co-creating Pan-European Innovation Ecosystems: reflections from the EIT”.
Competition in the global economy has increasingly become a battle between various networks or ecosystems. Companies can often no longer be competitive just using their own know-how. Instead, and in addition to their own competitive advantages, they need the benefits offered by strong partners. Such partners may include other companies and public sector or civil society organisations. Various business incubators, business accelerators and organisations specialising in promoting the use of various technologies may have an important role as platforms for testing, developing and distributing new ideas.
See all the papers presented in the seminar.
