Supporting innovation in traditional companies

ended

Innovative solutions are often combined with companies operating in the modern technologies industry, highly automated production companies or start-ups launching products and services based on the latest research and discoveries. Meanwhile, the market is dominated by companies offering traditional solutions that do not show, at first glance, the perspective of transformation towards broadly understood innovations. The belief in the lack of development opportunities by implementation of significant changes in traditional businesses is the reason for the stagnation, shrinkage and even the collapse of many SMEs in Europe. Traditional companies are enterprises operating in industries that have been operating on the market for several dozen or even several hundred years, e.g. agriculture, forestry, construction, gastronomy and hotel industry, education, legal or accounting activities, as well as the activities of libraries, archives, museums and various types of transport services. The degree of their modernity and approach to the implementation of innovation often opposes modern industries related to broadly understood digitalisation and based mostly on the latest knowledge, such as IT, IoT, AI, AR, VR, drone industry, telemedicine or even hydroponics in favor of these others, of course. Although effective combinations of innovations with traditional services or products, such as thermoactive clothing, on-line food stores, train simulators or foot scanners in shoe stores are already well known, entrepreneurs' willingness to develop towards new technologies is still small. The reason may be the lack of awareness of existing solutions and technological possibilities. The goal of the project is to develop a strategy for promoting innovation in such business, that could be implemented by business environment organisations.