Reinvent to keep ahead of the game

“In itself, the word ‘innovation’ means nothing other than newness,” said Ruairí Ó hAilín, senior technologist at Enterprise Ireland (EI). “It doesn’t make sense until you attach it to something, such as innovation in sales, innovation in product, or innovation in your business model. It has to be applied to something: product, service or process.”

One way to approach innovation is to see it in terms of differentiating your business from the competition. “You might do that with the product, the service, the support you provide, or the technology you use,” said Ó hAilín.

State supports are available for SMEs looking to fund innovation, starting with EI’s innovation vouchers. Each is worth €5,000 in research and development assistance from a third-level institution.

Applications can be made by companies of any size, and in any sector. Vouchers can hone in-house processes to make a business more competitive, and can also be used for tailored training in innovation management or innovation and technology audits. A company can use only one voucher at a time, but it can apply for three, as long as one is co-funded on a 50:50 basis.

EI recently launched business innovation grants for SMEs. These pay up to 50% of the cost of a business innovation programme, to a maximum of €150,000. The focus is on process, recognising that some of the most successful innovators of recent times, such as Uber, are not technology innovators but disruptors of existing products and services.

SMEs looking to invest in innovation are also supported by the tax code. The research and development &D tax credit provides 25% tax relief on qualifying R&D cost. So, if you spend €100,000 on R&D, you get €25,000 back.

If you do not have a tax liability, the 25% can be refunded over three years, making it of particular interest to small companies and start-ups.

For most indigenous Irish companies, the highest costs in R&D are salaries, which qualify as a cost for the relief. The tax credit can be set against equipment costs. Meanwhile, the Knowledge Development Box, which recently came into force, allows companies to enjoy a tax rate of, in effect, 6.5% on profits derived from software that has been developed and patented or copyrighted in Ireland.

Science Foundation Ireland’s Industry Fellowship Programme offers fellowships to postdoctoral academic researchers wishing to spend time in industry, to a value of up to €100,000. For SMEs, the programme provides an opportunity to have someone undertake research without having to worry about salary costs.

EI’s 14 technology centres, based at third-level colleges, bring industry and researchers together across specialities including food, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, cloud computing and risk technology. Many are engaged in Innovation Partnerships, another EI support mechanism, which provides up to 80% of the cost of research work on new innovation.

EI research indicates that every €1 of funding invested by it in Innovation Partnerships delivers €7.71 to the companies involved.

One of EI’s technology centres is Food for Health Ireland at University College Dublin. The centre runs a €1.7m Innovation Partnership called Safe, which brings together researchers and businesses to develop predictive software to enhance food quality.

“The only constant in business is change, so if you’re not innovating, you’re not going to be around,” said Sinéad Proos, senior innovation and commercialisation manager at Food for Health Ireland. “Innovation Partnerships provide help financially, because there is risk involved in innovation, and it is not cheap and it takes time.”

Michael FitzGerald’s OnePageCRM, an online sales tool, used a business innovation grant to help it scale up by targeting larger scale enterprises as customers. The business employs 23 people and sells around the world, many to firms that have traditionally been “one-man bands”. The grant enabled FitzGerald to assess how the company’s sales and support processes would need to be adapted to cope with large corporate clients, and it won significant business from larger clients, including an airline and a financial services company.

“To us, innovation is everything. Marketing is dead because people just go online and learn from each other,” said FitzGerald. “For us, it’s all about the product, the customer service and support behind the product — and innovation is at the centre of all that.”

Another firm, Critical Healthcare, has moved from a business supplying first-aid consumables to ambulance crews to a designer and manufacturer of unique products and services. The company’s MediQuilt, a patented disposable quilt for patients, is sold around the world.

Having recently received a business innovation grant, Critical Healthcare developed its Medlogistix software, which enables ambulance crews to order and receive emergency medical supplies on a “just in time” basis, reducing cost and waste.

“We started out in this business selling bandages and bags around the country,” said Anne Cusack, co-founder of the company with Seamus Reilly, her husband. “We realised that the only way we were going to grow an international business was by changing the way our market does its business, and Medlogistix does just that for the ambulance service.

“We’re not a software company, we’re a company using software to grow. We’re already looking at the next phase of Medlogistix. Innovation is now central to what we do.”