Over the period, the EEN Scotland team has provided intensive, tailored support (linking them investors, funding, international opportunities, innovation partners) to its existing SMEI winners , as well as to its Seal Of Excellence awardees. In addition more Scottish SMEs were targeted for the building of innovation management capacity of services (through Improve assessments, Innovation Master Classes/workshops). The offer of business innovation coaching was also extended to support innovation and innovation management capacity building beyond SMEI winners.
Our Implementation Strategy (IS) centres on the principles of strong integration with the regional business support ecosystem, being an integral part of the strategic delivery of our host structure. Holistic all-round support has been made available to all our SMEI, Seal Of Excellence and Innovation Management Capacity building beneficiaries: this means that EEN Scotland work hand in hand with other innovation and investment support teams across Scottish Enterprise, as well as with the Scottish Investment bank, InnovateUK Challenge teams and other key partners to deliver results for our client SMEs. We have adopted a “Team Scotland” approach to supporting our companies, a rigorous segmentation of our client company base and a high potential SME targeting strategy (including intake filters and needs/gaps analysis). The objective is to improve the innovation and international performance of Scottish SMEs: building their innovation, international and growth capacity and increasing their competitiveness in global markets. Following the approach of the IS has paid dividends with an attributable €23 million additional revenues for EEN SMEs clients over 2017 -2018. We have built a strong SME pipeline for further activity and growth in the future.
These Innovation Management Capacity services have provided a catalyst for EEN Scotland to further integrate into the regional/natioanl ecosystem and host structure provision, and to define a more centred, holistic approach to serving our clients. The additionality and value-add of EEN Scotland have been brought into sharp focus, allowing us to define a highly tailored service across our client base (H2020 and COSME) supporting our SMEs’ innovation, international and growth ambitions. The smooth integration of the H2020 support with the broader COSME activities (linking innovation to international markets, access to finance, building international value and supply chains, linking to lead customers, collaborative innovation and international partnership development etc) is highly appreciated by our client companies as well as our business and innovation support partners and colleagues.
