Enhance innovation management capacities in Andalusian SMEs. CESEAND InnoAses 2019.

Project Information

CESEAND InnoAses4

Grant agreement ID: 831358

DOI

10.3030/831358

Project closed

EC signature date 29 January 2019

Start date 1 January 2019

End date 31 December 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 106 385,00

EU contribution

€ 106 382,00

Coordinated by

AGENCIA DE INNOVACION Y DESARROLLO DE ANDALUCIA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CESEAND InnoAses4 (Enhance innovation management capacities in Andalusian SMEs. CESEAND InnoAses 2019.)

Reporting period: 2019-01-01 to 2019-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The provision of European financial services as Horizon 2020 and its synergies with COSME represent an important help to make new business and organizational models achieve the potential SMEs who are able to reach out new geographic markets. But, advance and tailored support into the SMEs Innovation Management Capacities is also needed in order to create a favourable ecosystem for their innovations growth, providing support to research, development and innovation projects, such as specific services aimed to improve their innovation skills and address the financing needs required by the implementation and execution of high-risk and high-potential innovation ideas to markets.

The CESEAND InnoAses4 project identifies the Innovation Management Capacities Improvement as a crucial milestone to create more innovative Andalusian SMES, enhance their relation with other potential European partners, reinforce their potential cooperation and increase the cross border activities becoming more and more competitive into the single market.

According to this call, this project has achieved the following objectives:

• To address the lack of innovation as a barrier for SMEs growth and enhance the innovation capacities of SMEs in Andalusia, in order to make them more competitive through the provision of advanced services.
• To increase the economic impact from innovation and to drive forward non-technological catalysts for innovation in SMEs.
• To provide services to enhance the SMEs innovation management capacities, identify future potential applicants to successfully take part in SME Instrument, and support to beneficiaries of SME Instrument, accompanying them in their transition through Phases 1 and 2.
• To develop methodologies that can be enhanced through their integration into the Andalusian Innovation Ecosystem.

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

Taking into account the regional Andalusian Smart Specialization Strategy and the three main pillars of the European Programme ‘Horizon 2020’: Excellent Science, Competitive Industries and Societal Challenges, the main activities carried out during this period have been the following:

• Identification of the different target groups (executed at the beginning of the contract): SME Instrument beneficiaries among other SMEs with significant innovation activities and high potential for internationalization.
• Description of the innovation management tools used in the project's implementation. IMP3ROVE (DIQ) and IHC Tool: SWOT Analysis; Innovation Management system; Innovation capacities: (Ideas Management, Projects developments, IPR Markets needs and Financial and Non-Financial Indicators) and other specific techniques take into account despite each diagnostic.
• Company visits and calls to detect interest of potential companies in the services mentioned above with the development and assessment of on average 7 days package services: Enhance SME innovation management capacities (EIMC) and Key Account Management (KAM) over the region covered despite both target groups.

In this sense, the consortium has continued delivering services similarly as during 2015 to 2018 through IMPROVE, IHC and CoachCom tools, providing as well the Digital Innovation Quotient (DIQ), the Key Account Management (KAM) and the Enhancing Innovation Management Capacities (EIMC) services.

During 2019, the CESEAND consortium have achieved the provision of 21 KAM services from SME Instrument/EIC Accelerator initiative (18 phase 1 and 3 phase 2) beneficiaries from the average of 11 cases initially planned. Additionally, a total of 31 EIMC services from the 44 cases initially planned.

6 IMPROVE services and 25 Innovation Health Check (IHC) have been achieved plus. Taking into account the cancelled cases at the end, and 1 pending Digital Innovation Quotient that will be finished during 2020; we could have also reached the 100% of execution with the complete implementation of 56 advisory services from the initially 55 cases planned.

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)

Some of the following capacities and know-how have been transferred to the advised SMEs:

• Provision of tools to gain an understanding of their organisation's context, especially the innovation ecosystem in order to turn it into a business ally.
• Raise awareness to establish the leadership and the commitment of the SME's management in innovation process and techniques to implement successfully an innovation plan.
• Enable SMEs to identify and encourage internal and external factors that support innovation as an enhancement of the business and develop the innovation management process.
• Set up a balanced scorecard that allows innovation management to be piloted and enhanced.
• Implementation of an exhaustive analysis, including recommendations and improvement proposals, for its possible successful participation in SME Instrument.
• A tailored made proposal of services managed by Enterprise Europe Network, which contributes to enhance SME’S business plan's development.

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