There is no “one right way” to innovate. Innovation practices are shaped by the business challenge they solve. The definition of a good innovation technique is context dependent.
The rapid pace of advancing technology and growing customer expectations mean that manufacturers must continually reinvent themselves through research and development and the introduction of new products.
Openly embracing innovation and inventive design can also help break down organizational barriers and bring people together across the various disciplines of an organization.
But what does it truly mean to be innovative? Listening attentively to customer needs and understanding their challenges are key. This front line feedback empowers engineering, product development and manufacturing teams to continually improve existing product lines and develop new products to meet emerging challenges.
When people talk about innovation, they aren’t imagining routine change. Simply implementing accepted best practices falls into the category of good management, not innovation. Innovation, at its heart, is an original creative act.
But simply being new is not enough. People care about innovation because it offers important answers to critical business challenges. Innovation must be more than clever, it must be useful in a meaningful way.
Northern Ireland ranks 5 out of the UK regions just four points off the UK average
Companies are defined as wider innovators if they have engaged in new and significantly improved forms of organisation, business structures or practices and marketing concepts or strategies. Values represent the proportion of companies that are defined as wider innovators. Years correspond to the time period when results were gathered, not the publication date of survey results. NI results published within NISRA’s NI publication use a slightly different methodology to those published by the UK Community Innovation Survey.
The proportion of innovative firms reporting collaboration has risen by over one third.
The NI Innovation Survey is a subset of the UK-wide Innovation Survey and provides a regular snapshot of innovation inputs and outputs. The values represent the proportion of innovative companies that report collaborative activity.
Government support for traditional NI industries
Government support for clusters of traditional Northern Ireland industries is needed to power the local economy on the world stage says HM Homegrown, a new campaign for local SMEs which launched today.
HM Homegrown celebrated the success of Northern Ireland’s small businesses, which make up over 99% of the local business sector, by recognising the Top 50 ‘bread and butter’ firms at an event at Titanic Belfast.
The league leaders were identified through research carried out by Ulster University Business School for top local accountancy firm Harbinson Mulholland.
The results confirmed that the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in Northern Ireland, which boasts more homegrown businesses per head of population than Wales, Scotland and all regions across the North of England.
Almost 75% of them operate in just three sectors – manufacturing, construction and wholesale/ retail. 21 are based in County Antrim (six in Belfast alone), 10 in County Down, 9 in County Tyrone, 8 in County Armagh, and 1 each in Counties Londonderry and Fermanagh.
Altogether, the league leaders earned just over £100m in operating profit in their last reporting year on a turnover of £1.6bn. Almost £170m in wages and salaries was paid out to over 5,700 employees. 32 out of the 50 businesses are family-controlled.
Bawnbua Foods of Lurgan, which operates in the meat processing sector, topped the Top 50 list with a turnover of £43.36m. Second placed was Shelbourne Motors of Portadown, one of several motor vehicle dealers, with a turnover of £39.1m, and third placed was Regency Carpet Manufacturing of Bangor with of £39.08m.
In the three leading sectors,13 businesses were involved in Construction, 12 in Wholesale/Retail, and 11 in Manufacturing. Ten of the Top 50 were involved in food production and distribution, 6 in car sales, and 4 in shopfitting and joinery.
Professor Mark Durkin, Executive Dean of Ulster University Business School commented “The economic impact of the 50 companies listed in the Harbinson Mulholland / UUBS Research is considerable generating as they do £1.6 billion in revenues and wages of almost £200m. These companies act as key enablers of Northern Ireland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, an ecosystem that Ulster University Business School is proud to be part of. The results of this research demonstrate that just because businesses are local in origin does not imply they are not global in ambition; that because they are from traditional sectors does not mean they are not modern in outlook. Indeed local homegrown businesses have a sense of place and origin that can really create competitive advantage”
“Northern Ireland has demonstrated its ability to sell its agri-food, manufacturing and construction products and services overseas, but internationally successful companies tend not to emerge in isolation,”
“Domestic competition drives innovation, efficiency and productivity improvements, which in turn develop businesses which can take on any competitor across the world. As a result, there is merit in Government identifying the most appropriate ways to support the continued growth of successful clusters to help power the economy into the future.
“It is also clear, given our findings, that economic transformation requires us to build from existing industries and encourage growth across all industry sectors, including low, mid and high-tech firms.”
Darren McDowell, Senior Partner of Harbinson Mullholland said that homegrown businesses were the backbone of the practice’s client base, adding: “The Top 50 list underlines the vibrancy of this group of companies and the spending power they give to local communities through employment.
“Attention is often focused on other sectors, but this research demonstrates the continued importance of traditional businesses and industries to the local economy and the extent to which they can be successful.
“Although a diverse economy with successful businesses across many sectors is important, a small economy such as Northern Ireland cannot be world-class in every area, hence the need to focus on sectors where we do best.
“With the outcome of Brexit still putting a question mark over how we do business in the future, it is more important than ever to play to our strengths and ensure that we support successful clusters in doing great business around the globe.”