Services Innovation in Ireland - Options for ... - Europe INNOVA

facilitate non-technological innovation 96 and the bundling of new services with existing products.
Such an initiative may suitably be accommodated by developing a new and distinct business support
framework for services innovation, including a review and ‘Service Proofing’ of existing and future
support mechanisms.
Conclusion 5 – Services Oriented Support for Telecoms and Broadband Investment
and Infrastructure
Information technology infrastructure and investment such as telecommunications, wireless and
broadband, are key enablers of services innovation as the evidence from the Study of the global
concentrations confirms. In particular, the SCM-Logistics sector in Memphis and London in financial
services, where technology is effective in achieving services innovation, it is an enabler of an
innovatory impulse that is already in train rather than the driving impulse for the innovation itself.
However, while Irish telecoms and broadband investment and transport infrastructure have both
received considerable levels of public investment under the National Development Plan and from
other State programmes and agencies, information technology penetration in Ireland is significantly
below the EU average.
Rapid and sustained investment in infrastructure, such as broadband and other advanced
communication technologies, is a pre-requisite for a highly innovative services economy. Similarly,
transport infrastructure to allow services to be globally delivered and companies to concentrate
spatially also helps to support services innovation.
It is recognised that advanced telecoms and broadband requirements are inherent in services
innovation activity and contributes as an enabler of services innovation and future competitiveness of
the services sector in Ireland. As indicated in the Forfás report on ‘Benchmarking Ireland’s Broadband
performance’ 97 , an acceleration in the ICT and telecommunications investment and infrastructure,
including broadband access, is now urgently required.
Conclusion 6 – Competitiveness and Convergence Through Networks, Clusters and Centres
of Excellence
The Study has revealed the important role that clusters and concentrations of similar types of
activity have on services innovation activity. This factor can be observed in concentrations as diverse
as Stockholm, London, N Carolina and Netherlands and in sectors including the creative industries,
financial services and SCM-logistics. These concentrations allow world-class companies to prosper
and innovate alongside locally based service innovators. In such concentrations vibrant competition
seems to be at least as important as collaboration and services innovation requires this element of
competition for ideas, customers and skills to be able to prosper.
Similarly, services innovation is stimulated by centres of excellence that assist in the emergence of new
business models and services delivery concepts. This was evident in the SCM-Logistics concentrations in
Memphis and the Netherlands. A key feature of these centres is their ability to promote and support
flexibility and creativity and as a result to foster convergence and collaboration between technology
and service areas.
Hence the development of concentrations and ’hot spots’ of services innovation with high value
specialisation, collaboration and competitiveness between companies and individuals, can ensure
healthy competition among companies for customers, skills and skilled staff.
96 For example: process improvements; design enhancement; changes in the composition and delivery of a product; brand management;
marketing; monitoring of markets; supply chains; networks; customer relations; attitudes to cooperation and competition in financial and
business models; management, recruitment and human resources policies, new financial instruments, new sales concepts and formats,
organisational restructuring.
97 Forfás report – Benchmarking Ireland’s Broadband performance. November 2005. http://www.forfas.ie/publications/forfas051205/webopt/
forfas051205_broadband_webopt.pdf
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