When it comes to the importance of innovation to the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises, no one should doubt it. But in our country, innovation is actually only a matter for a small number of enterprises. According to statistics, Chinese companies with independent intellectual property core technologies account for only 0.03% of the total number of companies, 99% of companies have not applied for patents, 60% of companies do not have their own trademarks, and 90% of exported products are OEM products. In other words, the vast majority of SMEs seem to have nothing to do with innovation.
Why is this? There are certainly many external factors, such as a good innovation ecological environment has not yet been formed, innovation motivation and incentives are insufficient, innovation investment and risks are too high, and good returns can be obtained without innovation, etc. However, why do some companies stand out and become models of innovation under the same conditions and background, while others perform mediocrely? In the final analysis, companies still have to look for problems and shortcomings within themselves.
Currently, China's economic development has entered a new normal, and the international market has become increasingly complex, dangerous, and unpredictable. In the past, many small and medium-sized enterprises relied on hotbeds for survival, such as demographic dividends, reform and opening up dividends, resource and environmental dividends, and other factors. The low-cost comparative advantage of labor and other production factors no longer exists. "Innovate or die" has increasingly become an ironclad rule. Whether it is for the sustained and stable growth of the national economy, optimizing the industrial structure, or for enterprises themselves to adapt to and lead the new normal, accelerating the implementation of innovation-driven development strategies is more urgent than ever and more difficult to avoid. To this end, small and medium-sized enterprises must have the courage to try innovation, have the sense of responsibility, and have the wisdom to plan strategies.
First of all, we must fully understand the necessity and significance of innovation-driven development of small and medium-sized enterprises at the current stage. Since the reform and opening up, China has intentionally or unintentionally embarked on a factor- and investment-driven development path based on its own resource endowments and comparative advantages, and has achieved phased success. In the 1990s, the government and enterprises continued to invest heavily to gradually improve various infrastructures, introduce advanced technologies and technical equipment available from the global market, and establish modern, high-efficiency factories suitable for large-scale production. Strong competitiveness has been formed in industries such as basic raw materials, standardized products and parts that are capital-intensive, labor-intensive and have particularly obvious economies of scale, making China one of the world's most important manufacturing bases.
However, this development model continues to this day. Not only do we feel the tremendous pressure brought by resource shortages and environmental pollution, but also after the international financial crisis, Western countries led by the United States began to adjust their industrial structure and Consumption patterns and the implementation of reindustrialization have brought unprecedented challenges to my country's traditional development model. If we do not change our development model promptly and decisively, sustained and stable economic development will be unsustainable.
High savings rate and high investment rate can achieve rapid economic growth. However, if the transformation to an innovation-driven growth model cannot be carried out in a timely manner, economic efficiency will not increase due to the lack of support from technological progress, which will reduce investment efficiency. Showing a decreasing trend. Not only are residents unable to share more in the fruits of economic growth, but what they gain from capital accumulation may be “negative wealth,” ultimately leading to the end of economic growth and falling into the so-called “middle-income trap.” In this context, small and medium-sized enterprises have an unshirkable responsibility to drive innovation, transformation and upgrading.
Secondly, small and medium-sized enterprise operators must have the confidence to win and the determination to dare to innovate. Akio Morita, the founder of Sony, once said, "Anyone can innovate as long as his life depends on innovation." There is also a saying in Latin that means "Necessity is the mother of invention." History has fully confirmed that, As long as they have no choice but to retreat, any company or individual may burst out with amazing creativity and innovative spirit.
For example, the famous innovative company 3M in the United States embarked on the road of innovation in this way. In 1906, six miners in Minnesota faced bankruptcy after investing all their personal savings in "worthless" gravel pits. They had hoped to mine valuable minerals, but all they found was sand. In desperation, they invented sandpaper (3M's first product), and the rest is glorious history. Invention and innovation will never end, and there will always be opportunities, but they belong to the brave and the hard-working.
To this end, managers and employees of small and medium-sized enterprises must regard innovation as a necessary condition for the company's survival. They must have a sense of urgency and crisis to take innovative actions and implement ideas, and they must also believe that efforts will always be rewarded. no pain no gain.
If an enterprise strives to pursue more quantity, better quality, faster speed, lower cost, and higher customer satisfaction every day from top to bottom, innovation will naturally occur; conversely, if the enterprise persists in striving to innovate, the enterprise will You will naturally achieve the above-mentioned performance and results.
Thirdly, small and medium-sized enterprise operators must have an innovative mission and entrepreneurial spirit, and create a cultural atmosphere suitable for innovation. Innovation is the function of entrepreneurs, and invention and creation are a reflection of entrepreneurial spirit. Without entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirit, small and medium-sized enterprises will not have successful innovation. Implementation has proven that small and medium-sized enterprises with excellent entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirit have strong innovation capabilities, and vice versa.
Entrepreneurs and their innovative and entrepreneurial spirit are the key to successful innovation for enterprises. But this does not mean that employees are not important to innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises. On the contrary, a company with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirit must have a corporate culture that encourages all employees to innovate, so that everyone can be proud of and enjoy innovation. Since ordinary employees are most familiar with the problems existing in the company's products and services, and have the closest contact with customers, they can discover the shortcomings of products and services at the first time, and have the greatest advantage in innovating and improving them.
For small and medium-sized enterprises with insufficient funds and talents, ordinary employees are the most valuable innovation resources, and this is precisely ignored by many enterprises. If they don't deliver heroic results and get into trouble, it's easy for busy managers to ignore ordinary workers and their ideas. Operators of small and medium-sized enterprises who strive for the survival of their enterprises must not suppress the richest source of new ideas. They must give employees full space to develop freely, create a cultural atmosphere that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship, tolerates failure, and provide innovators with reasonable rewards and Effective motivation.
Furthermore, small and medium-sized enterprises should pay attention to non-technological innovation. Innovation is divided into technical innovation and non-technical innovation. The latter includes institutional innovation, management innovation, business model innovation, etc. Technological innovation with independent intellectual property rights is certainly very important for the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, especially industrial manufacturing enterprises, but non-technological innovation cannot be ignored, or is even more important. Because a successful company is not necessarily a leader in technology, but it must be a leader in systems, management or business models.
For example, the reason why Huawei can quickly stand out and become the leader in the world's communications equipment industry is its employee stock ownership system. Today, 60% of the innovations of American companies are business model innovations, and 40% are technological innovations. The importance of business models to independent innovation is evident. The core of business model innovation is value innovation. Apple in the United States and Haier Group in China are both recognized technology leaders. However, Apple can transform from a niche provider of "cool" products to become the world's largest company by market capitalization. Haier can buck the trend and rise amid the general decline in profitability of the global home appliance industry. What they rely on is not “skills superiority”, but business model. The former is “the integration of hardware, software and services”, while the latter is “the integration of Rendan and Rendan for instant supply under zero inventory”.
The rapid development of the new economy represented by the Internet emerging industries in the United States has a lot to do with the fact that it began to grant patents for business model (business method) innovation in 1998. Many enterprises in our country have placed knowledge creation, technological innovation, and product innovation at a strategic level, but they have not yet paid enough attention to business model innovation. As a result, although some companies have very advanced technologies, their products are not popular in the market. The important reason is that they do not carry out value innovation from the perspective of "maximizing customer value" and do not analyze the constituent elements, the relationships between elements, or the motivation. Innovate business models in terms of mechanisms, develop potential user needs and attract customer interest. With institutional innovation, business model innovation, and management innovation, technological innovation often comes naturally.
Finally, small and medium-sized enterprises must be good at using intellectual property strategies. The reports of the 17th and 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China both proposed the implementation of intellectual property strategies and emphasized the protection of intellectual property rights, which has important guiding significance for small and medium-sized enterprises. The ability of small and medium-sized enterprises to create, use, protect and manage intellectual property determines their core competitiveness.
Property-owned knowledge constitutes the most important production factor and wealth resource in the knowledge economy. Intellectual property rights are a powerful tool in international competition in the knowledge economy. In the international competition arena, intellectual property rights are the core weapon.
The United States has three major hegemonies, namely financial hegemony, military hegemony and knowledge hegemony. Among them, knowledge hegemony is reflected in three firsts in intellectual property-related industries: No. 1 in the world in PPT international patent applications, No. 1 in the world in number of well-known trademarks, and copyright-related industries. Ranked first in the world in terms of income.
The creation, protection and application of intellectual property rights have long restricted the healthy development of our country's enterprises and economy. Because our country's local enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, lack the awareness of independent innovation and are diligent in imitation and introduction, they are often at a disadvantage in the fierce market competition with multinational companies. Even if you rely on low-cost and low-price advantages to gain a certain market, you will inevitably encounter pressure from intellectual property infringement lawsuits. In recent years, multinational companies have been accustomed to using the big stick of intellectual property rights to prevent Chinese companies from entering the international market.
To this end, my country's small and medium-sized enterprises must strengthen independent innovation, consciously raise awareness of intellectual property protection, and focus on implementing intellectual property strategies. For small and medium-sized enterprises, especially high-tech enterprises, innovating without patent protection is equivalent to building high-rise buildings on the beach. Therefore, enterprises should establish organizations and various rules and regulations to protect trade secrets and intellectual property rights.