IMPLEMENTATION OF INNOVATION MANAGEMENT

TOOLS IN MONTENEGRO

Saa Jovanovi Business Incubator Manager EEN MONTENEGRO

Portoro 28th September 2017
Overview

Montenegrin consortium offers innovation management

support services to:

enterprises, consultants and intermediaries

financial actors, policy makers and academia with consulting
support and innovation management
these services include innovation management benchmarking
for enterprises, training and certification in innovation
management
Overview

Innovation management support services offers:

The company gains insights in their innovation management

performance and competitiveness
Financial actors receive support and tools to enhance the value
of the enterprises they invest in by improving those
companies' innovation management performance and
competitiveness
Policy makers are offered technical assistance, such as
developing effective innovation management support
programs
Academia gains insights in innovation management
performance and benchmarks
Business advisors are offered training, approaches and tools
for better innovation management support, mainly to SMEs
Holistic Approuch to Better Innovation

Innovation management requires skills in following key

dimensions:

Developing the innovation strategy

Establishing and fostering an innovation organization and
culture
Managing the innovation life cycle processes for short time to
market and short time to profit
Continuously improving the innovation results, mainly
profitable growth from innovation in terms of growth in
revenue, in profit and in number of employees
Impact

Given the general level of profiency in innovation management

Montenegro is currently ranked on position 48 in the Global
Innovation Index report 2017 following Vietnam and
outperforming Qatar

By providing support during the innovation management

assessment and highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of
the SME's innovation management capabilities, the companies
learned about the key success factors of innovation
management
As of January 2015, 31 Montenegrin companies successfully
completed the Assessment on innovation management. Out of
these 31 companies, 12 completed the Root/Cause Analysis to
gain a better understanding of the underlying reasons why
competitors might be better in innovation management
19 Montenegrin companies were interested in Innovation
Health Check Assesment
Impact

Innovation Services Rendered in Montenegro

Impact

Innovation Services Rendered in Montenegro

Most of the Montenegrin companies involved an IMP3rove

trained consultant or business advisor to perform the
assessments.
The 5 IMP3rove trained consultants participated in basic
training on innovation management and some of them also on
innovation management consulting
The SMEs that benefitted from the services mainly came from
the commercial centers in Montenegro - with the highest
population coming from Podgorica area.
We have tried to cover different sectors and to respect
geographical coverage
Impact

Geographic distribution of SMEs

We have included 3SMEs from

the north region, 18 from the
central and 10 from the south,
which fully corresponds to the
regional share of active SMEs
in MNE
Impact

Innovation Services Rendered in Montenegro

The split by industry sector shows a high population in the

Food processing and ICT sector followed by the sector of
construction and metal production.
Regarding other sectors, we have conducted the assessment
in Manufacture of furniture, Engineering, Thermal isolation
The SMEs that benefitted from the Assessment are from the
smaller segment of SMEs. The majority having less than 10
employees while only very few are from the segment of 50 to
250 employees
Impact
Impact

Split of Montenegrin SMEs by age in years

Almost an equal size of companies that are in their 2.decade

since foundation and companies that are up to 5 years
Impact
Scores of the Montenegrin SMEs

This score is calculate based on the growth of the SME during

the last two years in terms of revenue, profit and number of
employees.
Feedback
Short-term feedback by company

Companies have been invited to provide their short-term feedback

immediately after completion of the Assessment
Positive feedback provided by SMEs that completed assessment
They rated these services with at least 4,9 out of maximum 7
(Scale: 1: Very limited: . 7: very high)

Question Average Rating

How do you rate the overall benefit of the IMP3rove services for your organization? 5.1

Did the Questions in the IMP3rove questionnaire address your needs? 4.9

How useful was the information provided in the benchmarking report for your organization? 5.1

How do you rate the IMP3rove consultant's added value during the assessment? 5.7

To which extent did the IMP3rove consultant address the issues of your firm during the
assessment? 6
Feedback
Long-term feedback by company

Nine months after the services had been rendered to SMEs, they have
been invited to provide their long-term feedback
They rated these services with at least 5,0 out of maximum 7
They have scored the impact of the assessment on their innovation
management performance on average high with score of 5,1 out of
maximum 7
(Scale: 1: Very limited: . 7: very high)
Question Average Rating

How do you rate the overall benefits of the IMP3rove Assessment for your
5.0
organization?

Did you IMP3rove Assessment meet your firm's needs and your expectations? 5.1

To what extent could you derive improvement measures from the results of the
5.2
IMP3rove Assessment?
Would you agree that the IMP3rove Assessment enhanced your innovation
5.1
management performance?
Feedback
Characteristics of successful innovating companies

Systematic collection of all impulses that could lead to innovation

Creativity of employees
Ability to evaluate the possibility of the innovation idea
Good team work
Employees motivation (the employees are willing to improve the
product and the operation of the whole company)
Cooperation with external experts (universities, research
laboratories)
Continued education of employees
Ability to finance the innovation activities
Proper rate of risk-taking
Feedback
What we have learned

National and Local government involvement and awareness of the

importance role of Innovation and R&D
The importance of the various instruments of innovation - pre-
incubation programs, academic incubators, incubators and
technology centers, technology transfer etc.
Close cooperation, partnerships between SMEs, universities, local
authorities, companies, development agencies, Chambers of
Commerce, etc.
Effective examples for various financing schemes dedicated to
innovation, access to grants and funding (refundable / non-
refundable) - funding for the development of spin-offs, start-ups,
existing regional funds dedicated to them as well as those created in
partnership between SME and universities
Stimulating cooperation between business environment and research
institutions by reducing taxes
Close link between education - research - innovation that ultimately
lead to jobs and increased productivity.
 Thank you for attention !

Saa Jovanovi

E-mail: s.jovanovic@bscbar.org