When we pay attention to the hundreds of publicity messages that are intended to reach us everyday, we can see up to what point the term, innovation, has become a concept of strength for the advertisers. Why is this happening? It is happening because this concept of innovation sells! It is an active marketing strategy for any brand, not only from an abstract point of view but also because the market really functions that way in all of its aspects. Not long ago, innovation was thought of as a high added value for any company, which is no small thing. Today, however, it is a survival factor, an element of natural selection in a business ecosystem that seems more and more to be like a jungle.
The message that the Regional Government of Galicia (Xunta de Galicia) continually sends to the agents of the Galician System of Innovation, and more specifically to businesses, is that the time to begin to think about it has already passed. Our Galician Plan of Research, Innovation, and Development (I2C) 2011-2015 contains lines of action that were directly designed to provide support to companies in terms of their innovation efforts. To a significant degree, we have created the I2C with the priority to give support to collaboration with centres of knowledge so that businesses can benefit from the market value of their research results, the participation in high impact projects with capacity to attract European Union financing, the taking on of open innovation processes in order to improve the e"ciency and effectiveness of those projects and, above all, the incorporation of innovative dynamics in each and every department and process of the company by means of organised and professional management.
As a part of this task, we are dedicated to the diffusion of experiences that may serve as references or as motivation for small and mediumsized companies in all of Galicia and in all sectors of activity. Therefore, within the frame of the Strategic Axis of Diffusion of the I2C, this ‘i.20’ came into being. It is a story that threads together twenty cases of innovation success in businesses built in Galicia, with an ‘i’ in front. The ‘i’ is for innovation and internationalisation, ‘i’ for imagination and initiative, but above all, ‘i’ for illusion. In this book, different stories are told: of family businesses with a long trajectory and potential business; of innovation in terms of product, service, organisation, distribution, or maketing; of traditional sectors of activity in the Galician economy or of those just emerging; of the interior or of the Coast;… Despite the variety, there is a common denominator: the impetus, the effort, the desire to compete and, in sum, a project of business life that is full of illusion and confidence in the future.
From the Regional Ministry of Economy and Industry, we have accompanied many of these innovators along the path and now we are telling their stories in this book in order to let people know that it is possible to succeed through innovation. We have included businesses of all types of profiles so that, at some moment, every reader involved with a small or medium-sized company would be able to see himself or herself reflected and thereby be encouraged to take the first step if they have not yet done so. For the rest of the readers, our message is that there remains a long way to go in Galicia but we have good vehicles (here we have twenty examples) and we will continue to work hard so that the roads of innovation become more and more easy to transit and safe.
Happy reading.