British businesses often talk about the need to harness IP, but seem to have less success than their European counterparts. Yet, the UK is widely regarded as one of the most innovative countries in the world and for many companies, it is not a lack of ideas that is holding them back, but a lack of skills and encouragement to continually innovate. 

Constant development = continued success

Innovation is commonly associated with the creation of a new business structure. Start-up companies are established to take a new idea forwards and so people will often only look at innovation and creating commercially valuable IP at the start of the new product process.

Continuous innovation is essential for the ongoing growth of a successful company. Most companies are comfortable sitting on a single innovation or product and simply don’t have the time or resources to develop new intellectual property. While this may make money in the short term, companies run the risk of stalling if they fail to continually develop their portfolio of IP, products and services.

Innovation is not just about invention

Markets are constantly changing, so the fact that you have a profitable business now is no guarantee of sustainability in the future.

Much in the same way that the latest computer can become outdated by the time it’s out of its box, a product, idea or concept can rapidly lose value. In this climate of rapid change companies need to consider a program of continuous development, alongside a succession of new products, if they are to avoid going stale.

As most companies aren’t designed to research and develop the latest technology, it is time companies started to look beyond their own borders for their next generation of products. Reinvigorating the development of your products and services doesn’t have to come from within your own company. Innovation is all about the successful introduction of new ideas into the marketplace; it’s not necessarily about invention.

While most companies will not have the time or resources to allow their staff to devote a proportion of their time to continuous innovation, a partnership or licensing agreement with another company could provide a solution that can help them.

Developing innovation

Most small and medium sized companies are not equipped to generate new research and development; they are organised to make, sell and deliver. And, while a start-up company based around the research and development of their ideas may well have the intellectual property at their disposal, they may not have the market knowledge or experience to take it further.

Likewise, established companies will have the infrastructure, market channels, experience, sales force and resources to push innovations forwards but may not necessarily have the new product ideas or knowledge of the technology to create the next generation of products.

It may be the case that a partner company could use your intellectual property in another market, or that you could develop someone else’s ideas using your own industry experience. Either way leveraging external knowledge bases through collaboration between companies can provide obvious benefits to both developers and marketers that want to create commercially successful assets out of their intellectual property.

Mike Herd is executive director of the award winning business incubator, the Sussex Innovation Centre http://www.sinc.co.uk/