Who can best support innovation?
At the end of the month, Geneva will host the 45th edition of the Salon des inventions. A few weeks ago, following an architecture competition, we discovered what the future Swiss Innovation Park in Biel/Bienne would look like.
These events alone illustrate all the efforts our country undertakes to support the companies that will shape our economic future. It must be said that on this point, we are doing rather well in international rankings — we are placed fourth in the Bloomberg 2017 index, behind South Korea, Sweden, and Germany.
In a society where technology reigns, the frenzy of innovation is everywhere. Everything is geared towards it. There is an effort to encourage it, nurture it, and coddle it… the external support mechanisms for innovative companies are plentiful.
To use an analogy: just as an entire agricultural system develops around a seed that takes it from harvest to the industrial chain, there is a whole "chain" around the young shoot that goes from the incubator to the market via industrial prototyping. It is in this context that the cult of the start-up has developed. Today this word possesses almost magical virtues. The mere act of labelling a company as such confers upon it de facto the attributes of an innovative enterprise.
Yet "newness" is too often mistakenly equated with innovation, when in fact they are two quite distinct things. From this perspective, one must beware of false promises. The cult of the innovative start-up has been pushed to the point of absurdity, and we have seen the establishment of innovation support mechanisms in which entrepreneurs spent more time chasing available subsidies than actually trying to innovate.
Innovation cannot be decreed
To such an extent that some consultants have specialised in searching out subsidies for companies. While it is essential to accompany young companies along a path that can be long and perilous, how can one distinguish the wheat from the chaff? Is an administration equipped to carry out this selection work? It is evident that in this matter, the competence of experts is not enough if it is not backed up by solid experience. Must one not have already been at the head of a company oneself in order to be capable of judging such a structure and assessing what its needs are?
Added to this is the fact that the bodies dedicated to accompanying companies often have grids and must meet certain objectives based on predefined criteria. Yet innovation cannot be decreed and is rarely where one expects it. Granted, futurologists and statisticians can make predictions and imagine it is essential to systematically encourage all young companies entering the field of artificial intelligence. But just because a sector is innovative does not mean that the company operating within it will be innovative itself. Let us recognise that innovation can come from anywhere — and above all from where one least expects it.
The resources of the mechanisms "of the past"
Who would imagine that in a sector such as baking, for example, one could still create a surprise? Yet that is the case with the baker who launched the motorcyclist's baguette — curved in the middle so it can more easily be stored in a backpack. This example shows how innovation is not solely a matter of technology; it touches all sectors. To this is added a notion of timelessness: the so-called mechanisms "of the past" have not yet revealed all their resources. Indeed, if one takes watchmaking mechanics, for example, one finds that daily innovations are being made on processes and mechanisms that were conceived more than 200 years ago. And we are not talking here of the connected watch. No, we are talking about traditional watch movements, for which craftspeople continue to improve precision and lubrication…
Yet the person who invents tomorrow's complication would undoubtedly not raise an eyebrow from the administrator of a public innovation fund. They would fly under the radar, not meeting the criteria for the "so-called innovative sectors." Finally, no innovation can be decreed in itself. Only the market can ultimately say what it considers to be a genuine innovation.
Bill Gates's tablet
The best example is undoubtedly the tablet. Bill Gates with Microsoft never managed to launch his portable tablet. Steve Jobs, on the contrary, found the heart of the public. The former was undoubtedly too far ahead of his time; the latter always had a nose for decreeing when an innovation was ready to be put on the market. But it was the consumers who ultimately saw in the iPad the genuine innovation that truly matched their needs — and this against all expectations.
Granted, nobody can think of questioning innovation support policies, but the considerations raised here lead us to the conclusion that those best placed to help companies must meet at least three criteria: they must themselves have entrepreneurial experience; they must not make their choices based on innovation policy quotas, but on the contrary must remain open-minded to all types of subjects and all types of business sectors.
Ultimately, one realises that within an innovative approach, it is entrepreneurs who are best placed to help other entrepreneurs.
