Enhancing Innovation Management Capacities and Key Account Management (KAM) services for Greek SMEs

ended

The need for supporting innovation-driven entrepreneurship in Europe as a vehicle for boosting its competitiveness and growth has been evidenced and adopted as one of the key targets and priorities of EU policy and initiatives (The Global Competitiveness Report 2013-2014, 2014, WEF). Empirical analysis shows that innovation, can account for a substantial share of economic growth – often around 50% of total GDP growth – depending on various factors (OECD STI Policy 2015). Innovative SMEs have been already identified as one of the groups which EU funding tools should support, however the majority of EU SMEs still lag behind in innovation capacity and innovation management capacity skills. As expected, the above hold true for Greek SMEs. The 2017 SBA Fact Sheet clearly shows Greek SMEs score below the EU28 average in their capacity to convert new-to-market and new-to-firm innovations into sales. At the same time, Greek SMEs introducing product or process innovations score higher than the EU average. Under this frame, the Enterprise Europe Network-Hellas (FPA 649598), a well-placed and experienced network of experts and organisations, working in close proximity to Greek SMEs, will advance its support to the innovative companies by providing complementary services for the enhancement of their innovation management capacity. The proposed action aims to: • Identify SMEs with the capacity to innovate and internationalise, provide them with the tailored services to improve their capacity to manage innovation processes • Support SMEs to utilize the opportunities offered under the SME Instrument, Fast Track to Innovation and Future Emerging Technologies OPEN programmes • Support business innovators with international ambitions to translate their ideas into market success • Foster the innovation potential of SMEs that, compared to large companies, have limited capacity for risky/costly R&D activities and consulting services • Offer targeted assistance on innovation managemen