Wielkopolska Stakeholders gathered in Poznan Science and Technology Park in order to review and ensure common understanding of the requirements for the specific instruments improvement and design the support tools for startups and first time innovators.
Workshop outcomes:
The main conclusions from the meeting are as follows:
1. The company needs should be identified in an accurate and comprehensive manner, providing expertise and mentoring according to individual development plan and maintaining relations with external experts/mentors.
2. Business support organization should stay more proactive towards their clients.
What change should the improvement/instrument bring?
• Apart from equity financing for developing their business, startups need skills of client and market acquisition, complex consultancy and support in all aspects of company management, because they have limited knowledge/ know-how and human resources.
• Start-ups need to get awareness that the funding is not the end on its own but only a means to reach their business objectives. They need assistance to set-up the development objectives and implementation plan (business plan) as a first step and then assistance in getting financial resource to implement the plan as a second step.
• Once decided to enter the innovation path mature companies also need high quality advice to get diagnosis of innovation potential as well as assistance in innovation process.
• Public administration needs knowledge and feedback from SMEs to be able to design and effectively implement support.
• Innovation intermediaries need skills to acquire clients, but also specialisation and competent employees. They have to provide high quality advice to deliver companies with diagnosis of innovation potential and assistance in innovation process.
• Intermediaries need new effective methods of work and financing, including public financing on long term basis according to their performance. Public authorities need to receive relevant feedback on intermediaries performance in terms of achieving policy objectives.
