By writing this blog I intend to express my opinions, research results and general ideas regarding business development, business opportunities and innovation. the blog is not intended to serve as a scientific publication, but rather as a practitioners' basic discussion platform.
My main occupation is innovation and especially Open Innovation. The term Open Innovation relates to innovation that comes to the firm from outside; from other firms, research organizations, consultants and others. That is in contrast to internal innovation which stems from within the firm.
While Israel may appear as a good source for best practices in innovation, as it is important to remember that Israel is very different in its industrial sectors structure than EU member states. When referring to and SME in Israel one would normally refer to a high-tech company, a start-up company. In which case the size and performance would relate to its life length and success. In the EU as there are far more traditional sector SMEs than high-tech SMEs, the same assumption as in Israel cannot be made.
Based on the assumption that SMEs are start-up companies, the Israeli system of innovation was based on assuming that the SMEs perform research and need only be supported. It assumes that the SMEs know an want to manage R&D and need the parters or financial support.
Therefore the tools developed in Israel cannot be coppied as such to other countries such as the EU member states that see SMEs as mostly traditional sector firms, which have no idea how to manage R&D and how to introduce its results to their internal routines.
Last week a mission from Finland of high-tech firms visited Israel. They came to see the Israeli model meet firms here and make contacts and search for partnerships.
How can the model be coppied?
We may deal with that next post. In the meantime have a look at the links......