© abr innova oy, 2004 gulliver in the land of giants? internationalisation of the r&d of a...

© ABR Innova Oy, 2004

Gulliver in the land of giants? Internationalisation of the r&d of a

small enterprise 17.06.2004

Markku Rajala

President, ABR Innova Oy


ABR Innova Oy is a company, which commercialises ideas related to ceramics materials and high-temperature technology. The ideas are developed to products or processes inside ABR and then spinned-off to new companies, who produce the final products. Three companies have been spinned-off and three are under the development stage.

•ABR Innova Oy


•For an innovative, small company the international r&d is the only way to achieve the critical knowledge-mass required for the growthABR Innova Oy, like most small companies, have to find a niche-area, where the global market size is comparable to the company’s revenue, so that the company can be a global market leader.

The “nicheness” means that there are only few experts related to the specific technology area – globally.

The company has to find these experts and co-operate with them.


•The key force driving the (international) r&d of a small company has to be short-term sales – unless the company is heavily funded. Time-to-market and time-to-profit need to be clearly defined.R&D –people tend to provide excellent technical quality – but seldom in schedule.

Time-to-market means nothing to the research organisations – and time-to-profit even less!

A small innovation-based company may use more than 30% of its’ revenue to r&d – and it needs to know that the investment pays back in short time.

This is even more important in (more expensive) international r&d.


•The internationalisation process is complicated and requires an outstanding network and long-term relationships. Governmental organisations could do much better in helping the SME’s in this area.The organisations do not make the networks work – people do!

Networks are created by face-to-face discussions developed by conference calls and organised by emails.

(International) co-operation is easy, if the motives are same – unfortunately this is seldom true between an SME and a research organisation.

Linear process is replaced by parallel process.


RESEARCH

DEVELOPMENT

PATENTING

DESIGN

PRODUCTION

•Happy Days

•are gone

Finnish Academy

Tekes

Keksintösäätiö

SALES

Tekes

Banks, Finnvera

TE-center


?RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT

PATENTINGDESIGN

PRODUCTION

•Bad New Days are here


•SME clusters can work extremely well in globalising r&d

The members (SME’s) of the cluster(s) share the same motive – making business.

Requires open, reliable co-operation between the cluster members.

Mostly change of information – much “silent knowledge”.


•Multinational r&d programmes (like European programmes) are far too bureaucratic and slow for SME’s


•R&D co-operation between SMEs is easy and straightforward – leave the European research money to universities

Italian SMEDanish Co.

US SME

INNOVATION PATENTING CONTACTING PARTNERS FEASIBILITY STUDY R&D PILOT-PRODUCTION

6 months to $5-15M market


•Intellectual property rights (IPR) are a key issue to a knowledge-based SME. USA’s patent policy is superior to the European system and also one of the reasons why US is an attractive place for placing r&d efforts.

European patent – never ?

Patenting in US is easy – and after filing the patent, co-operation in r&d is much safer.


Thank you!

www.abr.fi

www.nanoharju.fi

© abr innova oy, 2004 gulliver in the land of giants? internationalisation of the r&d of a...

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