Dear Mirma,

I answer your question based on experiences that I have encountered in my professional life.

In the first place, there is a great ignorance of what is real innovation, which can be fundamentally about products and services or processes. For this reason, there is a lack of focus in the market (if it is product innovation) or in internal customers if it is process innovation. This barrier reminds me of the article "Myopia in Marketing" by Levitt (Harvard Business Review, July-August 1960 edition) that says that this short-sightedness occurs when companies make the mistake of concentrating only on the characteristics/attributes of the product in instead of doing it in the client's needs.

The absence of a concrete framework of action (knowing exactly what I want to do and achieve) sometimes causes confusion between creativity and innovation, qualities both necessary for the survival of the company in the market but different. Creativity is a skill that all people have more or less developed, which allows us to make connections that generate new ideas, but that does not have to have commercial or business validity. However, innovation is processed creativity and turned into business success, because to sell successfully it is not enough to have a great idea and that this tie with the needs of your potential client, it must be revolutionary and even create a new need to be bought.

The absence of a structured system of innovation in the SMEs also causes a diffuse assignment of objectives and responsibilities, causing the absence of coordination, control and monitoring. This lack of control is common, and companies that try to innovate that do not assign a structured response to innovate usually give this function to isolated functional groups, not properly integrated into the organization of the company.

To finish, your question has full sense. Despite the importance the firms consider to innovation, a recent Harris Interactive survey sponsored by Olympus has found that while the vast majority of the 304 executives who participated believe that innovation is extremely important, 53% believe that organizations for who work do not make enough efforts to promote it.

With regards.

PM

Dear Pedro, thanks for sharing your experiences. I agree with your views. Do you have any thoughts on dufferences between large companies and SME innovativeness barriers?

I also see you come form Leon. I yiu happen to know Jose Luis Vazquez or Ana Lanero, give them my best regards. Mirna

Firm competitiveness and its future depends upon its ability to innovate. Firms undertake innovation to gain some specific outcomes. These may include increased productivity, enhanced competitive position, reduced costs, and meeting regulatory compliance in a more effective manner, among others. ADBI92014) highlights some f the barrier in SME innovation that includes;

· Poor skill among People as a Barrier to Innovation

· Lack of access to Information as a Barrier to Innovation

· Absence of Government as a Barrier to Innovation

· Poor Infrastructure as a Barrier to Innovation

· Market Factors as a Barrier to Innovation

· Financial bottlenecks

· Shortage of and hindered access to qualified personnel

· Limited internal know­how to manage the innovation process effectively and efficiently (e.g. missing project management know­ how)

Dear Mirna, I will transfer your greetings to José Luis, who, I presume, is a good friend of mine.

I answer your question. There are indeed differences between the innovation made in SMEs and large companies. In the case of large companies, innovation processes are more orderly, have more precise objectives and are more structured than in the case of SMEs. The main reason for these differences is the availability of resources.

SMEs, as large corporations, are aware of the importance of innovation, but the available resources are different. I may give some idea, another important issue that I detected between 2008 and 2013 due to the economic crisis has been that the SMEs in the search for new business opportunities and cost reduction processes have innovated in a more intense way than the big enterprises. In this sense, I believe that in the first place because of a question of business survival and secondly because the big companies reduced their R & D & I budgets due to the fall in sales during the first years of the crisis.

I hope I've helped.

Regards

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I agree with you. What do you zhink about motivation zo innovate differences? Can we distinguish between innovation causwd by neccessity and from oportunity? Which is more typical for SME?

As far as I know, in micro and small companies, innovation is more abundant out of necessity than out of long-term strategic conviction. In the case of medium-sized companies, by skills, resources and conviction the i + d + i has a more strategic sense. There are also cases where a start up arises due to a product innovation that is successful in the market, but in many cases there are also innovative initiatives that are not successful because they are born without thinking about their acceptance by the market. The businessman thinks that it is a good idea and that the market has to buy it because he/she thinks it is good.

A couple of papers that could be of your interest:

Obstacles to Innovation for SMEs: Evidence from Germany

N Strobel, J Kratzer - International Journal of Innovation …, 2017 - World Scientific

https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S136391961750030X

Determinants of innovativeness in SMEs: disentangling core innovation and technology adoption capabilities

JA Martínez-Román, I Romero - Review of Managerial Science, 2017 - Springer

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11846-016-0196-x