No.6 December 2008
Column | Interview | Feature Story | Best Practices | Opinion | Center News
Column
Organisational Innovation: the 'missing link'to improve business' competitivenessing link'to improve business' competitiveness
Aleardo Furlani

Aleardo Furlani
CEO of INNOVA SpA

Italy

The present article has been written in October 2008 by Aleardo Furlani, CEO of INNOVA SpA and Rebeca Lucas, Senior Policy Analyst of INNOVA SpA ,Rome, Italy ?for publication in the ?Innovation Briefing? of APEC SME Innovation Centre.

In today's new economy characterised by continuous economic, technological and social change, the key word to survive is competitiveness, and competitiveness can no longer be achieved by technological innovation alone. The purpose of the present article is to identify the new trends and emerging facts which show how important non-technological innovation is. Non-technological innovation is a pervasive concept that includes any change t
A new understanding of SME internationalization : active participation in global value chain
Jong-il Kim

Jong-il Kim
Dongguk University

Korea

Firm?s internationalization, along with the development globalization process, has become a key word for the past few decades and it will continue to be an important issue in managing companies and carrying out policies for years to come. Over the past few years multinational companies have led globalization, which has received special attention from those multinational companies as their major management strategy. Recently there is growing recognition that not only big corporate but also SME can benefit from globalization. However, different people understand the concept of firm?s internationalization differently since the concept of globalization and internationalization is rather abstra
Interviews on innovative case studies
Wolverine Korea: The leading company manufacturing automobile gasket Building up one-stop process from production planning to inventory management

The POP(Point of Production)project pursued by Small and Medium Business Adminstration(SMBA) has played a key role to enhance SME productivity. The project aims to control overall production process for SMEs by digitizing production process through IT introduction? in shop floor operations. In other words, IT is put in place instead of the existing system in which information such as data for production process, inventory management and lead time have been manually recorded. It helps owners and workers make effective decisions in manufacturing products.

During the period from 2002 to 2007, 963 companies participated in the project to adopt POP system, and then have achieved good results. Wolverine Korea is one of? the companies that have achieved the excellent resul

Taste fabulous Korean wine!

"Taste fabulous Korean wine!"

Domestic wine market has grown significantly for recent couple of years due to huge wine boom in Korea. The size of Korean wine market reaches 400billion to 500billion won at the moment, while that of 10years ago was less than 1billion won. Wine market exceeded the size of domestic whisky market and it is expected to increase to the size of 1 trillion won in near future.

Most of the wine distributed in Korea is imported goods. They are French, Italian, the US, and Chilean wine. Chilean wine and others have become main product circulati

Feature Stories
SME Innovation Policies On Industry-Academy Collaboration
Wan-hup Song

Wan-hup Song
POSTECH

Korea

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1. Introduction

??Industry-academy collaboration is defined as the interaction and cooperation of actors such as businesses, research institutes, and universities in the process of promoting projects with various purposes including R&D, training and fostering of human resources, and human and information exchanges.

??Industry-academy collaboration is an effective and efficient method which can contribute to reduction of risks from R&D, exchange of mutual capabilities, and utilization of developed technologies through the partnership between businesses and universities. Furthermore, it has recently been em
Best Practices
Introducing Chinese Taipei's Institutions Promoting SME Innovation
Chen-Sheng Ho

Chen-Sheng Ho
Taiwan Institute of Economic Research

Taiwan

Introduction

The success of Chinese Taipei?s economic development has depended largely on SMEs. This is a fact that is widely recognized all over the world. In order to strengthen its involvement in APEC and to enhance cooperation with other APEC economies on issues relating to SMEs, Chinese Taipei has particularly focused on participating in the Small and Medium Enterprises Working Group (SMEWG). The result has been the implementation of actions that seek to enhance the development of SMEs in the Asia-Pacific region. As Taiwan moves from being a developing economy to a developed economy, SMEs in the technological industry have played an increasing domin
Innovation Centers in Peru CITEs (ITCs)
Mercedes Ines Carazo

Mercedes? In?s Carazo
Manager of the Technical Office of Innovation Centers
Ministry of Production PERU

Peru

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I.The Peruvian Context

During more than 65 months the Monthly GDP Growth from Per? (Fig. 1) is positive? with yearly growth greater than 6%.? Also Peru has an? ?Export BOOM?. The Total exports have increased more than 30% per year from 2001 to 2007, including non-traditional exports that have grown at an annual rate of more than 18% in the same period but they are less important than the traditional ones. (Fig. 2)

Fig 1. Monthly GDP Growth from Per?

Promoting Thai Innovative SME for Competitiveness
Pornthipa Luengwatanakit/Jarunee Wonglimpiyarat

Pornthipa? Luengwatanakit
The Office of Small and Medium Enterprise Promotion (OSMEP)

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Thailand

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Jarunee Wonglimpiyarat
The National Innovation Agency, Ministry of Science and Technology

Thailand

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Introduction

National innovativeness plays an important role in fostering economic growth and prosperity.?This article is concerned with the policies to support small- and medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) innovations. In particular, it will examine the activities of the National Innovation Agency (NIA) in supporting the national innovation system. This study provide
Opinion
Global marketing strategy for SMEs
Chul-ho Jun

Chul-ho Jun
CEO of SolBit Consulting

Korea

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Have you heard of the term "small but strong company"? Literally it means a company whose size is small but capability is strong. The names of companies such as Koenig&Bauer, Wanzl, PWM, Gallagher might be unfamiliar to many people. They are small but strong companies which have risen to the top in the world market in each field of money printing press, shopping cart, electronic price sign for the gas station and electric fence.

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Center News
2008 International Conference on SME Innovation: 'Collaborative R&D Based Technology Innovation for SMEs' 2008-6-30
2008 APEC SME Innovation Leader Workshop 2008-6-30
The publication of the report on Development of an Assessment Framework for the Daegu Initiative SME IAP 2008-6-30
Facilitating SME Innovation in APEC by the APEC SME Innovation Center 2008-6-30
No.6 December 2008 (www.apec-smeic.org) Contact : apec@tipa.or.kr