Innovation and Generating Growth

On this week’s Business Eye with Joe and Simon.

Part 1 of the Business Eye  

Dr Susie Mitchell Phd

Susie lives in the UK, where she runs a Personal Development and Corporate Coaching Consultancy. Development 

Susie is a Psycho-Neurologist, Professional Coach, Master Practioner in NLP, and an inspiring /Motivating Speaker. The author of ‘Satnav for the Soul‘ and ‘The S Word’. Susie consults from time to time for BBC Radio and Radio Stoke.

Her passion is helping people make dramatic internal shifts, which fulfils their dreams and ambitions and she gets outstanding results with her Corporate Coaching and Personal Development clients from all types of backgrounds.

Mary Cronin

Mary is an advocate of circularity and the development of circular and bio-based economies and works with SMEs, and large organisations to create strategies to develop circular and bio based business models to generate growth. As a technologist, she combines her expertise with innovation and design to create scaling opportunities, enabling companies to transition to a low carbon future.

As a career technologist, Mary has a 15-year track-record in building and managing large complex technology systems together with a 10 year track record of creating entrepreneurial ecosystems, implementing programmes using lean and circular design validation methodologies and commercialising ideas.

Extra reading to consider 

Undoubtedly the capability to innovate and to bring innovation successfully to market will be a crucial determinant of the global competitiveness of nations over the coming decade. 

There is a growing awareness among policymakers that innovative activity is the main driver of economic progress and well-being as well as a potential factor in meeting global challenges in domains such as the environment and health. 

Not only has innovation moved to center-stage in economic policymaking, but there is a realisation that a co-ordinated, coherent, “whole-of-government” approach is required. 

Many OECD member countries have adopted national strategic roadmaps to foster innovation and enhance its economic impact. Even countries that have generally refrained from active industrial policy in recent years now seek new ways to improve the environment for innovation in order to boost productivity and growth.

Today, innovation performance is a crucial determinant of competitiveness and national progress. Moreover, innovation is important to help address global challenges, such as climate change and sustainable development. But despite the importance of innovation, many OECD countries face difficulties in strengthening performance in this area. 

Indeed, many OECD countries have seen little improvement in productivity performance in recent years despite the new opportunities offered by globalisation and new technologies, especially the information and communication technologies (ICT).

Source: Innovation & Growth – OECD

Innovation is an essential driver of economic progress that benefits consumers, businesses and the economy as a whole. How does it play that role, how does it contribute to economic growth and what can be done to promote it

In economic terms, innovation describes the development and application of ideas and technologies that improve goods and services or make their production more efficient.

One of the major benefits of innovation is its contribution to economic growth. Simply put, innovation can lead to higher productivity, meaning that the same input generates a greater output. As productivity rises, more goods and services are produced – in other words, the economy grows.

Innovation and productivity growth bring vast benefits for consumers and businesses. As productivity rises, the wages of workers increase. They have more money in their pockets, and so can buy more goods and services. At the same time, businesses become more profitable, which enables them to invest and hire more employees.

Innovation usually starts on a small scale, e.g. when a new technology is first applied in the company where it has been developed. 

However, for the full benefits of innovation to be realised, it is necessary for it to spread across the economy and equally benefit companies in different sectors and of different sizes. Experts call this process the diffusion of innovation.

While Europe is the birthplace of a great deal of innovation and continues to be an innovative region, there is clear potential to boost our innovative capacity further. Only three euro area countries are among the world’s top ten nations in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Indicator. There has also been a persistent gap in spending on research and development (R&D) between the euro area and other major advanced economies.

Structural measures to promote innovation include increasing spending on research and development (R&D) and investing in education, as well as enabling entrepreneurs to start businesses more easily and for failed businesses to exit the market more quickly. In addition, companies can facilitate innovation by investing in their staff and conducting their own R&D.

Part 2 –  Opening Up After Lockdown / The Irish Pubs, Lockdown and Business Interruption Insurance.

Brian Winters

Brian is a qualified solicitor since 2002. Since qualification he has worked primarily in industry and has represented some of Ireland’s largest companies in a range of corporate and property transactions.

Through Southstreet Capital, Brian has been an active investor in the hospitality sector with particular emphasis in Pubs. He has been involved in the trade through various ownership structures and partnerships since 2002. He has been a passionate advocate for legislative reform for the industry.

Brian is behind the ‘Save Irish Pubs‘, a campaign which was launched back in November of last year encouraging publicans to join a legal action against insurance companies that are refusing to pay out on business interruption cover claims made as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.