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RO-Boost Inno SMEs – Boosting the Innovative Potential of Romanian SMEs

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Ro-Boost Inno SMEs (RO-Boost Inno SMEs – Boosting the Innovative Potential of Romanian SMEs)

Reporting period: 2017-01-01 to 2018-12-31

The objectives of the Ro-Boost Inno SMes Consortium implementing the specific actions for increased innovation management fall under the Consortium’s vision stated in the implementation strategy: to help “SMEs in Macro Region 4 Romania become active players it the single market in terms of: innovative capacity, entrepreneurial discovery, dynamic partnership, proactive responsiveness to change, agility in accessing available funding with high impact implementation (smart investment).”

In this light 2 objectives were aimed by the RO-Boost Inno SMEs:

• To enable SMEs with growth and internationalization capabilities to achieve their full potential through innovation by supporting them in attaining the means and techniques to efficiently manage innovation in all its aspects.

• to facilitate ambitious SMEs’ access to means to achieve better performance in the implementation of their innovation projects within the SME Instrument Programme

Thus the Consortium sought throughout the reference period to raise awareness among innovative SMEs of the importance of the management of innovation processes in attaining and sustaining growth through continuous adaption and improvement of the business value. The Consortium engaged in challenging obstacles face by innovative SMEs and also in filing in the gaps existent in the regional business support ecosystem. The specific tools related to innovation management were thus exploited to provide meaningful insights in estimating the risks of investments in new innovations and helped SMEs to identify means of reducing these risks.
KAM SERVICES

2 companies were awarded under Horizon 2020 SME Instrument, Phase 1 in the past year, one in December 2016, and one in December 2017,both from the South West Oltenia region. For the former, the KAM service was delivered by ADR SV Oltenia and completed in 2017, while for the later the associated KAM service was not carried out, after the beneficiary decided to give up on the grant awarded in Phase 1.

Both SMEI beneficiaries are companies active in ICT field which developed the following radical innovations:
1. Affordable electronic assembly robot for low volume
2. Augmented Reality Indoor Navigation solution

Enhancing Innovation Management Capacities of SMEs

21EIMC cases have been completed in 2017 2018 by the RO-Boost Inno SMEs Consortium. The EIMC services involved companies in the filed of manufacturing ( both incremental and radical product and service innovations), ICT (radical product and service innovations),. In West Region ICT is leading sector in terms of radical innovations, derived from the shift of companies from outsourcing to development of own products and services. The 3 ICT cases are all young SMEs in the project-to-project stage which were supported by tehimpuls expert to define tehir innovation strategies in order to improve their time-to-market / time-to-profit, refine their business model and establish innovation processes that enable increased international market presence in a highly competitive setting. Other 3 manufacturing cases have been deployed in order to improve idea management / innovation life cycles for incremental innovations and improved enabling factors, agrofood and cosmetics (both incremental and radical innovations) and service providers. The Consortium, through Tehimpuls, adopted also the Digital Innovation Quotient in 2018 awith 1 successful test case completed.

The Consortium hosted a training on Innovation Life Cycle delivered by experts from Imp3rove Academy in 24-25th of July 2018. Another training shall be hosted in 2019 on the topic of Open Innovation.
The EIMC services delivered have impacted the beneficiaries in terms of improved capabilities to generate new ideas and shorten innovation life cycles. 4 of the companies started to develop new products / services. while other 3 initiated new innovation fields. 4 companies started to commercialize new products, while another refined its business model. Other 4 companies have put in place systems for idea generation and impact envisaged is to double the innovation project in the next couple of years.EIMC experts will follow-up in 2020 for a renewed assessment.
All clients supported with EIMC services have also benefited from EEN COSME services, mainly advisory services on access to international markets and access to finance, but also partnering services for market expansion.