The entity has prepared its second report for the Fundación LAB Mediterráneo, promoted by the Valencian Association of Entrepreneurs (AVE), and which aims to shake up the business fabric so that, literally, companies put their batteries into innovation.
“The Valencian Community appears in a worrying situation because this alerts that the competitiveness of companies is not based only on costs, but that products and processes must be improved. It has a lot of room for improvement”, added the economist.
The report was presented at CaixaBank's All in One office in Valencia, with the pedagogical intervention of the study's researchers, key to shaping the multiple data.
The "excessively small" size of the companies and the production model, very lacking in industry, are reasons that would explain the "bad position" of the Valencian Community in the state innovative ranking.
The report also captures a reality that the Valencian businessmen and women of AVE assumed with the first report that other territories surpass, by far, the Valencian fabric.
In this sense, IVIE researcher Matilde Mas pointed out that “efforts are being made, but not enough to change the average”. She encouraged speeding up the processes, and highlighted that “knowing our state, knowing about the environment that surrounds us is important, because we have to recognize that in other territories they give us soup with waves. But wanting is power, ”she clarified.
From the study it is derived that the weight of the investment in I D ICT (innovation, development and innovation and communication technologies, all together) on the total investment of the Valencian Community is 18.5%, compared to 19.6% the national average and far from the most advanced regions such as Madrid (25.5%), Catalonia (23%) and the Basque Country (21.7%).
The study also analyzes the innovation of companies from a qualitative point of view, for which the opinion of successful companies and entrepreneurs awarded in the Jaume I has been taken into account. “One of the brakes on innovation is society itself Valencian. Although it is not a matter of licking one's wounds, it is important to know where we live”, explained Vicente Safón, also an IVIE researcher.
The company's aversion to risk, the "serious problems in the university-company dialogue" or the bureaucratic obstacles in public policies are some of the barriers. For example, the study points out that in Valencian SMEs "innovation is basically renewal". And he recommends "having humility", key in the history of successful companies.
For this reason, the report establishes some recommendations, transversal to the business fabric, although with some specific point. For example, it invites the Valencian Innovation Agency (AVI) to be provided with more resources and to support the Valencian Institute of Business Competitiveness (IVACE), of which its "various" policies stand out, for which they ask for a "new focus on innovation".
