Think Breakthrough in SMEs - What makes innovation projects big

Genuine big innovations (breakthroughs) are not a coincidence but can be planned, even in medium-sized businesses. More than 90 industrial projects were examined in a new innovation study. 5 simple rules separate breakthrough projects from their mingy relatives.

A study of the consulting company C21 Consulting, Wiesbaden, (www.c21-consulting.de) has analyzed 94 innovation projects. The aim was to find explanations / commonalities why some companies achieve real breakthrough innovations (www.inntrace.de/industry-cases), while others get stuck in projects with small progress or simple copies.
The study found what it was looking for. Five commonalities characterize major innovation projects. The initiators, C21 founder Dr. Rainer Vinkemeier together with Dr. Alfred Heinz, for many years CTO and head of R&D of various industrial companies, are convinced: "Those who follow these five rules have a very good chance of achieving really great innovations".
These rules are not the preserve of large companies and corporations. On the contrary they have proven their effectiveness especially in medium-sized companies. Because the vast majority of the projects examined took place in medium-sized companies, in technically oriented industries such as mechanical and plant engineering, aviation, semi-finished goods industry but also pharmaceuticals and telecommunications.

Three of the rules in a short form:

1) Think breakthrough, insist on breakthrough!
You have to desire groundbreaking innovations and as a top manager or owner you have to demand them from your team. Even if it is difficult and meets with great persistence and resistance.

2) Learning from the future!
This is a deliberate break, the reversal of the usual perspective. Instead of continuing, the view is systematically and far into the future (scenario approach).

3) Engineers make the difference
Marketing and sales, innovation managers, controllers, etc., they all can and should have a say. But in the projects analyzed, engineers shaped the big ideas and innovations. For them, however, the following applies: they must want to and must have a certain mindset. Quiet modesty, being nice and constructive is not enough.

All statements are further elaborated in the study. In a second part, the results are also compared with scientific innovation approaches. Interested readers can request the whitepapers for the study (practice only or practice + theory).

Contact details:
C21 Consulting GmbH
Biebricher Allee 103, 65187 Wiesbaden
T +49 611 34 1557 21
F +49 611 34 1557 20
www.c21-consulting.de und www.inntrace.de

Media contact:
Nicole Wächter
T +49 611 34 1557 80
n.waechter@c21-consulting.de

C21 Consulting is a specialist for future-proof and multi-breakthrough innovations.
Through cooperations and own SME participations in different industries, founder and owner Dipl. Wirt. Ing. Dr. Rainer Vinkemeier ensures that innovation concepts do not leave the consulting firm until they have been successfully tested in an investment.

This release was published on openPR.