Internationalisation and Innovation, an opportunity for the spanish economy

Yesterday, 4 July, Indra's Alcobendas (Madrid) headquarters hosted the "Internationalisation and Innovation" event organised by the Foro de Empresas Innovadoras (Forum of Innovative Companies) and the technological multinational, where numerous experts contemplated and debated the relation between these factors and their importance as drivers for development.

In her presentation, the Secretary of State for Research, Development and Innovation, Carmen Vela, made reference to Europe's proposals as part of the "Horizon 2020" programme and pointed out that it is "an opportunity" for Spain thanks to the benefits involved, such as being an important source of funding, but also because of the relational return and since it allows to align the European strategy with domestic programmes and those of the autonomous communities, "which is a strength when it is well coordinated." "We want R&D&i to be continuous instead of separate and then transferring knowledge. This is the idea behind Horizon 2020: ‘From concept to market’.” In this regard, the secretary of state highlighted the importance of the State Research Agency, where "there is room for all researchers, not just academics."

Francisco Marín, President of the Foro de Empresas Innovadoras (FEI, Forum of Innovative Companies), stressed the importance of innovation and internationalisation in the context of the current economic crisis. "Too much emphasis is placed on the financial and fiscal crisis, but the crisis related to competitiveness and productivity is far more serious. Spain needs to increase its competitiveness by changing the production model with these factors."

Emma Fernández, Indra's Executive Vice President of Talent, Innovation & Strategy, reminded that the technological multinational "has the conviction and the experience in knowing that innovation and internationalisation go hand in hand. Innovative proprietary solutions have acted as leverage for exports, the drivers of our growth and the key to our sustainability." From her perspective, "now is not the time to relegate innovation. Our survival is tied to our ability to innovate."

In his master class on Internationalisation and Innovation, Pari Patel, a senior research fellow for the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex (United Kingdom), highlighted the important progress India and China are making in the area of R&D&i, which "is an opportunity for European companies" that can transfer a portion of their R&D to these countries as part of a distributed innovation model.

The event also included two debate tables. The first addressed the question of "What needs to be done in order for multinational companies to invest in R&D in Spain?". Julio Lage, Senior Vice President of the Fundación Innovación España (Spanish Innovation Foundation), Rosa García, President & COO of Siemens in Spain, and Jordi Martí, Senior Vice President of Amgen España.

In the second debate table, José Luis Angoso, Indra's Director of Innovation, Gianluca Tabarrini, International Director of the Ros Roca Group, and Manuel Pérez Sierra, President & COO of Acorde Technologies, discussed the matter of “What are the necessary qualities in order for Spanish companies to export their innovation?”

Foro de Empresas Innovadoras (FEI, Forum of Innovative Companies)

The Foro de Empresas Innovadoras (Forum of Innovative Companies) is a non-profit organisation that has the objective of promoting a culture of innovation within business networks, universities, public administrations, and in general, in all the areas related to generating knowledge. The Forum is established as a cooperative platform between universities and businesses, in an eminently practical manner, in the fields of research, development and innovation.

The Forum's members are individuals and entities interested in this objective and with a strong focus on the areas of corporate, university and institutional research. They have a web platform (http://foroempresasinnovadoras.com/) that serves as a meeting point for hosting individual desires for improvement and allows them to generate opinions that hope to influence society through mechanisms for distributing the ideas of open and democratic societies.

The FEI specific goals include: to facilitate the convergence between scientific, university and corporate communities in order to stimulate the transfer of knowledge between them; to develop a common culture of innovation, entrepreneurship and cooperation in the heart of the communities listed above that can be projected to society as a whole; to collaborate with national and international public administrations in the development of legal and institutional actions that favour cooperation between universities and businesses in the field of innovation, and to establish agreements with public administrations, trade unions, corporate and professional organisations, regional, national and international private entities and other agents, in line with the Association's goals.

Indra: Innovation as a key value

Innovation is the basis of Indra's business, the core of its sustainability as a company, and the differentiating key for its offer of solutions and services. In 2011, Indra's commitment to innovation translated to €189 million and nearly 300 R&D&i projects.

The technological multinational has an open innovation model through which it searches for and promotes innovation and talent internally and also through its relations with customers, partners, vendors, universities and knowledge institutions, as well as with society in general. In line with this model, Indra launched the "Think about Innovating" initiative, which is a global contest for open innovation that aims to identify and support new business ideas based on technology and to promote entrepreneurship, and in which three winning ideas were recently selected from more than 1,500 proposals received.

Indra is the leading technology multinational in Spain and a leader in Europe and Latin America. It is the second European company in its sector in terms of R&D, with €550 million invested in the last three years. Its turnover in 2011 was €2.688 billion, and more than half of its income is currently from international markets. The company employs more than 40,000 professionals and has customers in 118 countries.