Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FINKAMIE2016 (Enhancing the innovation management capacity of Finnish SMEs by the Enterprise Europe Network in 2015-2016)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2015-01-01 al 2016-12-31
The general objective of the project was to achieve overall long term capacity building in (Finnish) SME’s, particularly to make the innovation system in the companies more efficient and effective and to increase and accelerate the economic returns from innovation in the SMEs.
The first specific objective was the identification of bottlenecks to the creation of economic impact and address these bottlenecks with the help of capable coaches. The target group of this objective was companies benefitting from grants by Horizon 2020's SME Instrument. The beneficiaries in Phase 1 had up to 3 and in Phase 2 up to 12 coaching days.
The second specific objective was to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of innovation processes in small and medium sized enterprises with significant innovation activities.
Both objectives were contributed in the project and more that 100 SME's were served in the project. Great majority of these target companies started to improve their performance as a result of the actions.
1) KAM (Key Account Management) for SME Instrument beneficiaries
2) EIMC (Enhancing innovation management capacity of SME’s) for SMEs having significant innovation activities and a high potential for international growth
The KAM services included in the first meeting a presentation of the coaching priciples as well as needs and gaps analysis (done by smE-MPOWER assessment tool). This was followed by listing potential coaches (if the SME did not have desired coach by themselves), support for the coach selection and coaching plan preparation and facilitating coach-SME-EASME interaction. The service package included approximately 2,5 days in Phase 1 and 4,5 days in Phase 2 The company specified actions depended on the companies' needs and schedule. Mainly the reuslts from the completed coaching activities have been positive. The clients have benefitted in receiving external expertise which is quite challenging to find by other means. There has been a wide variety of development issues and a holistic approach but the most common benefits have been strategy, contacts and better practices in entering new markets.
The KAM service was provided by Turku Science Park Ltd.The KAM service was performed to all Finnish SME Instrument beneficiaries, 69 SME's in total. The KAM process is completed in 28 companie and the service for the remaining 41 companies will continue under the following project period on 2017-2018.
The EIMC service included assessment of the SME innovation management capacity by using the IMP3rove assessment tool or smE-MPOWER. The next step of the service was creating an action plan based on the assessment and finally implementation of actions to tackle the innovation gaps found in the assessments. The actions done during the development phase were directed to various issues like business and innovation strategy, internationalisation, digitalisation, r&d process development, market and customer need understanding and finances.
The EIMC service was performed by Finpro to 37 and by Turku Science Park to 5 Finnish SMEs. From altogether 42 companies served 21 cases were completed and the remaining 21 cases will continue under the following project period on 2017-2018.
Expected impact of the services provided is remarkable but challenging to measure. In short term the impact includes improvements and development in business processes among companies in the project. In long term impacts show as revenue growth, profit increase, tax incomes and new jobs. It is expected that the companies served in the project will create at least hundreds, believable thousands of new jobs in the next few years. In addition to these direct impacts there are expected multiplier impacts for society including more new jobs. The big majority of clients in this project represent environmentally friendly technologies, enhancement in human well-being or other societal implications. This means that the project has not only economic but also other positive impacts.