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While the primary focus of the CSO/Forfas survey on the innovation activities of Irish businesses was on Product and Process Innovation, some work was also carried out on Organisational Innovation, which the authors define as “the implementation of new or significant changes in firm structure or management methods that are intended to improve a firms level of knowledge, the quality of their goods and services or the efficiency of work flows.”   

The finding was that almost 42% of all enterprises carried out some form of organisational innovation between 2004 and 2006. The types of organisational innovation included the following, listed in order of importance: 

• The introduction of new business practices (38% of all firms). 
• The introduction of new methods of workplace organisation (31%). 
• The introduction of new knowledge management practices (27%). 
• The introduction of new methods of organising external relations (17%).

As with all the findings of the survey the larger the firm the more likely it was to innovate. Again, industrial enterprises had slightly higher rates than service enterprises, although in this case the margin was smaller than that found under other headings. 

The findings are illustrated below.

We may be only two days into “Promote Yourself Unashamedly Week” on www.Irishbusinesswomen.com but already over 80 separate businesses have taken the opportunity to post.
 
What is most striking about the entire event for me is the sheer variety of businesses that IBW members are running. You name it and they seem to be at it!
 
Personally I love the fact that so many people are involved in producing food of one kind or another and are so passionate about what they are doing. Of course I am showing my personal prejudices here, but what would life be without personal prejudices! I am obviously not alone in my fondness for food because two of the big hitters so far, in terms of page views are food related - Amanda Webb runs Feelgood Hampers, and her hampers contain exclusively organic produce; Hazel Mander has Mememe.ie and is in the luxury hamper business should anyone feel the need for a bit of pampering. The member who is considered to be the most creative in terms of self-promotion during the week is in for a bit of pampering because Hazel is sponsoring a hamper for the winner of that award. Than God I am not a judge!
 
Handbags must be the next big thing because we have one member recommending the we buy a handbag during our lunchtime, and a second extolling the virtues of being in Handbag Heaven. If you don’t want to bring your cat with you when out buying that handbag – and who does! – you can avail of the services of the Cat Club boarding cattery. This is one of many services members are promoting. One service that I had not been aware of before takes the form of a mobile crèche, so from here on in event and conference organisers can also have a crèche attached. 
 
The most interesting business name I have seen on this thread so far has to be wowwee.ie who sell baby gifts online.
 
County Tyrone based Noreen Cleary, seems to be our only member from the “wee North” to become involved so far, but hopefully she will not be the last.
 
The membership of www.Irishbusinesswomen.com, despite its name, is not an exclusively female preserve, and a couple of male members are in there too battling for recognition, including Keith Shirley who is getting lots of page views. Could the fact that he is offering freebies have anything to do with it I wonder?
 
Interestingly most of the self-promotion so far has been generally understated and comprised mainly of straightforward individual write-ups. Just now, however, Busywahm has upped the ante considerably with her promotional approach to he Mumcentric podcasting site, declaring that It’s Showtime. I can’t wait to see what comes next.
 
As I said before, this self-promotional fest runs until 13^th July, even those who join now can participate once they have become a member.  
 

As part of the CSO/Forfas survey on the innovation activities of Irish businesses, participants were asked to indicate their spending in each of the following categories: on in-house R&D (intramural R&D); on the acquisition of R&D externally (extramural R&D); on the acquisition of machinery, equipment and software; or on the acquisition of other external knowledge.
 
Total spending on innovation activities across the Irish economy is estimated to have been €4.6bn in 2006. The two largest categories were on the acquisition of machinery, equipment and software, which totaled €1.9bn in 2006 (accounting for 41% of total expenditure) and intramural R&D (€1.7bn or 38%). By comparison the spend on the acquisition of external knowledge (at 15%) and expenditure on extramural R&D (at 6%) were more modest. I find it somehow surprising that expenditure on the acquisition of machinery, equipment and software is treated as “innovation expenditure”. I would have always regarded such expenditure as Capital investment, and its inclusion has the effect of enhancing the overall innovation investment made by Irish industry. However, given that this study is part of a wider EU one I must assume that the approach taken is common to all EU countries and when we finally see the EU figures meaningful comparisons can be made if all countries have a common measurement approach.  The breakdown per category is illustrated below.

Industrial enterprises (with a spend of €2.7bn) outspent service type enterprises (where the spend was €1.9bn). The comparative spends of both is illustrated below.

The survey also looked at the levels of cooperation that existed among participating firms. The finding here was that the likelihood of undertaking cooperative innovation related activity increased with firm size, as can be seen from the next illustration.

In addition the survey examined who the cooperative partners were. Top of the list came suppliers of equipment, followed by clients and customers, just slightly ahead of internal groupings, reflecting, one assumes, cooperative inter-company R&D activities by the larger multi-national businesses located here. Consultants came next, with Universities pushed a long way down into fifth position, not much ahead of Government, a somewhat surprising outcome for me given the level of R&D funding being allocated to the Universities, an indication perhaps that there is less integration with industry than is desirable. Not surprising cooperation with competitors was the least popular outcome. The situation overall is illustrated below. 

Over at www.Irishbusinesswomen.com they have declared the week from 7th to 13th July as “Promote Yourself Unashamedly Week” and why not!

The forum, which is the virtual network of and for Irish business women, does not normally encourage blatant self promotion, seeing itself instead as a location where the members share information and support relating to their various business endeavours. With in excess of 2,000 members it is hard to argue with that approach, and the forum has prospered in circumstances where many others have bombed.

But of course every business must also promote itself and occasionally the “no blatant self-promotion “ requirement is lifted and members are invited to let rip in terms of promoting themselves. Last time out 70 separate businesses participated, and this year the hope is that double that number will do so.

Membership of the forum is free, and is open to all - and, despite the name, that includes men! Joining is simple, just log on to www.Irishbusinesswomen.com and take it from there.

Any member can become involved in promoting themselves during this event, so if you are reading this and would like to participate take this as an open invitation to do so. There are even prizes to be won! 

Unfortunately as the founder of the forum I am not eligible!!!

The CSO/Forfas survey on the innovation activities of Irish businesses, about which I have posted previously, looked a number of factors that might have curtailed innovation activities. These factors included: the availability of funds; the presence of external financial supports; the costs of innovation; personnel availability; availability of technical information; availability of marketing information; the difficulties associated with finding partners for co-operative purposes; the presence of dominant players in the marketplace and uncertain demand in the marketplace. Participants were asked to rank each of these as being of high, medium, low or no importance.   

The findings indicate that while the three largest hampering factors were lack of funds, high costs involved in innovation related activities and being in markets dominated by established enterprises, there were significant difficulties under almost all of the headings listed, with the possible exception of having marketing and technical information. The results are detailed in the next table, and illustrated graphically in the figure which follows it. 

I my original post about the CSO/Forfas survey on the innovation activities of Irish businesses I outlined some of the more general findings from the study. In my last post I looked at the types of innovation involved. It is now appropriate to look at the impact of that innovation in terms of the contribution it has made in terms of turnover. 

Almost 13% of turnover of all active and non-active innovators in 2006 in the industrial and service sectors was as a result of product innovations in the 2004 to 2006 period. Over 5% of this turnover was from new to firm products and over 7% was from new to market products. Large enterprises attributed 16% of their turnover to product innovations with almost 10% being from new to market products. Medium sized enterprises attributed 6% of their total turnover to new to market products compared to 5% for new to firm products. The position is summarised in the following table.   The percentage of turnover generated by new to the firm product innovations was 5% for both the industrial and services sectors. Enterprises in industry however, generated more than twice as much of their turnover from new to market product innovations when compared to enterprises in the services sector.  New to market product innovations contributed over 10% of the turnover in industry while new to market product innovations contributed in excess of 4% of turnover in services. The position is summarised in the following table. 

I have written in my last post about the CSO/Forfas survey on the innovation activities of Irish businesses. It is interesting to look at precisely what types of innovation they are engaged in. While there is a slight bias towards Product Innovation, which holds true across all sectors and all sizes of firm, overall, there is a reasonably even split as between Product Innovation; which is defined as the introduction of new goods or services or significantly improved goods or services having regard to their capabilities; and Process Innovation; which is defined as the introduction of a new or significantly improved production process, distribution method, or support activity for goods and services, which are either new to the market or new to the firm.    

In the period 2004 to 2006, just over 33% of all enterprises were engaged in product innovations, while 30% of enterprises were engaged in process innovations. The level of activity varied with firm size – the larger the business the higher the levels of innovation involved. The figures for product innovation were 29%, 47.7% and 62.4% for small, medium and large enterprises respectively. The same trend was evident in respect of process innovation where the figures were 26.7%, 40.7% and 60% respectively. Essentially larger firms are more than twice as likely to be active innovators than small firms. The situation is summarised in Table 1 below.

Innovation rates for all types of innovation were higher in the industrial sector when compared to the services sector. Almost 57% of all industrial enterprises engaged in some type of innovation activity over the period compared to 41% of all service enterprises. In excess of 40% of industrial companies were engaged in product innovations while 29% of service enterprises were engaged in product innovations. Just under 38% of enterprises in the industrial sector were process innovators compared to 26% of service enterprises. Large industrial enterprises were both the most active product innovators (68%) and process innovators (71%). Just over 56% of large service sector enterprises engaged in product innovations while 46% engaged in process innovations. Again the rate of activity varied with firm size. The situation is summarised in Table 2 below.        

The CSO and Forfas have just released details of a survey into innovation levels in Irish business. The work involved was carried out as part of an EU wide exercise. I have not been able to access the data from other countries and cannot make comparisons, but hopefully will be able to do it at some future date. Because the Irish data was gathered using a new methodology it is not possible to say whether our national situaltion is improving or not.
 
Comparisons apart, the survey reveals a surprisingly high level (at least I was surprised by it!) of innovation activities by Irish businesses, in that the headline innovation outcome reveals that in the period 2004 to 2006 inclusive, over 47% of Irish enterprises with ten or more persons employed indicated that they were active innovators. Almost 57% of industrial enterprises were classed as innovation active while 41% of service enterprises were innovation active. The overall position is summarised in the following table.
 
Innovation rates by sector and size of enterprise, 2004 – 2006
 

 
Overall, manufacturing firms were more active than service firms, and larger firms more active than smaller ones. Large industrial enterprises had innovation rates of 84% compared to 63% of similarly sized service enterprises. In excess of 67% of medium sized industrial enterprises engaged in innovation activity in the period while 58% of service enterprises were innovation active. Small industrial enterprises (employing ten to forty-nine persons) had an innovation activity rate of 51% compared to 38% of small service sector enterprises.
 
The figures in show that:

• In excess of 33% of enterprises were engaged in product innovation while 30% were engaged in process innovation.
  
• Almost 13% of turnover in the industrial and services sectors in 2006 was estimated to be the result of product innovations between 2004 and 2006.
  
• Total spending on innovation-related activities was almost €4.6bn in 2006.
  
• Of those enterprises who were innovation active, 27% engaged in innovation collaboration.
  
• The principle barriers to innovation for those firms who did not engage in any innovation activities in the period were a lack of funds and high innovation costs.
  
• Just under 42% of enterprises with ten or more persons engaged introduced an organisational innovation in the three years 2004 to 2006.
  

The figure below illustrates the current situation graphically. I will post more about some of the other findings from the survey at a later date.