MAKEOVER - Innovation MAnagement support and KEy account serVices for Triveneto small and medium EnteRprises

Project Information

MAKEOVER

Grant agreement ID: 674860

DOI

10.3030/674860

Project closed

EC signature date 28 July 2015

Start date 1 January 2015

End date 31 December 2016

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 240 652,80

EU contribution

€ 240 652,80

Coordinated by

UNIONE REGIONALE DELLE CAMERE DI COMMERCIO INDUSTRIA, ARTIGIANATO E AGRICOLTURA DEL VENETO
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MAKEOVER (MAKEOVER - Innovation MAnagement support and KEy account serVices for Triveneto small and medium EnteRprises)

Reporting period: 2015-01-01 to 2016-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

MAKEOVER project addressed the challenges of part 7 - Innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises – of HORIZON 2020 Work Programme 2015-2016. It carried out activities and offered services to SME’s of Triveneto to enhance their capacity in managing innovation in a strategic and structured way, so that the results of their innovation projects can effectively be exploited for increasing company’s competitiveness and growth in terms of jobs and profits.
Even if Triveneto is a dynamic area from the economic and entrepreneurial points of view, SME’s have a low attitude in innovation and innovation management. Often innovation happens by chance and investments in R&D are considered not a strategic priority. Surely, small dimensions – typical of Triveneto industrial structure – low propensity in inter-company collaboration, difficulties in generational change, low managerial culture are obstacles to innovation management. Moreover the credit crunch first and the successive economic crisis have strongly affected the macro-region.
Furthermore, differences in the cost of labour, globalization of the markets, economic and cultural growth of geographical areas once underdeveloped have almost swept away the previous industrial leadership of our economy. Systematic R&D and innovation approach can partly stem this trend and maintain our enterprises competitive in the global market.
In order to answer these challenges specific objectives have been pursued:
• to support an accurately selected group of SME’s of Triveneto macro region in designing, creating and maintaining an Innovation Management System (IMS) in order to include systematic innovation approach as an asset for growth;
• to support SME Instrument beneficiaries of Triveneto with Key Account Management services focussed on helping the companies to better exploit SME Instrument opportunity during the assisted phase and afterwards, in order to reduce time to market and increase company growth;
• to foster the “International horizon” of innovation in Triveneto, involving cut edge innovative companies in a special club of European innovators that will be exploited as archetypes for future followers;
• to deliver innovation service packages for each company;
• to identify suitable methodologies for enhancing SME’s innovation capability.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

MAKEOVER consortium supported 65 SME's of Triveneto region, providing them with support for “Enhancing SME innovation management capacity” (41) and Key Account Management (24) .
It could be considered a good result but it required a strong effort by the consortium partners to “sell” the EIMC service to the clients which often do not perceive the initial added value of this kind of services without a direct reward.
IMP3rove assessment methodology, Platinn, Innovation Health Check methodologies have been used to analyse the companies and benchmark them with a sample. Experts of the consortium assisted the questionnaire compilation during company audits with managers in order to:
- help the companies to fully understand the questions;
- help the companies to contextualize questions to their specific activities;
- help the managers to reflect on their current way of managing innovation within their company.
As a follow up, SME's received a consulting workshop, during which benchmark results were discussed with the experts and action plans were jointly elaborated.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

"Direct impact on companies assisted in Triveneto to enhance their innovation management capacities (service ""EIMC"") has been measured via a short term questionnaire. In particular, clients answered positively to question ""How do you rate the overall benefit of the offered services for your organisation?"", with a mean value of 5.96 (rating from 1 to 7), with a standard deviation of 0,77.
For sure the assessed companies appreciated the advice and the deep analysis provided; companies were not aware about the new technical specification CEN/TS16555 on innovation management and they were interested to understand how to better use it for really demonstrating their innovation capacity as a distinctive element.
The action produced also wider implications, attracting companies with growth capabilities, strengthening their capabilities for being more competitive on the international scenario. In fact, MAKEOVER demonstrated that the methodology can be scaled up with an integration with other EEN services.
"

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