GIZ and Ministry of MSME organise Brainstorming session on Innovation Voucher Programme

New Delhi, Nov 25 (KNN) On day two of the Innovation Voucher workshop, organized by Office of DC-MSME GIZ and FISME with knowledge support of Tantsia FNF Service Centre (TFSC), Chennai, the stakeholders made several suggestions towards effective implementation of the scheme.

“In case of innovation, one cannot pre-suppose a problem or a solution. The problems faced by different entrepreneurs can be different.” said Anil Bhardwaj, Secretary General, FISME, at the brainstorming session.

Voicing his concern on linking innovation with technology only,  Bhardwaj  said the innovator might not necessarily have an issue on technology front, it could be on HR, marketing, IPR etc.  fronts. So there should be flexibility for them to leverage the IVP in the required area. .

The  brainstorming session moderated by Mr. Amit Kumar, Programme Manager, GIZ India, discussed  on whether the scheme should be implemented by the Centre, the State or through the industry bodies.

Innovation Vouchers are used world-wide. Compared to other conventional instruments, it approaches the support to SME from a different angle - rather than supporting entrepreneurs on a pre-decided area.

The Innovation Voucher concept aims to encourage entrepreneurs to come forward with their own ideas – where they want to innovate and with whom they want to cooperate.

Wolfgang Leidig, Programme Director, Private Sector Development, GIZ, opined that Governments should focus on specific area like technology based innovation  and sought views from foreign experts over their experience in different countries where IVP has already been implemented.

Many experts suggested that keeping in view the focus on nurturing innovation amongst the start-ups, the scheme should cover the start-ups as well.

However, majority opinion was that the scheme mainly focus on promoting innovation amongst SMEs as there have been several schemes introduced for the start-ups in the last two years.

While the voucher on the one hand motivates SMEs to approach knowledge providers with their innovation-related problems - something that they might not have done in the absence of such an incentive, the voucher also provides an incentive for public knowledge providers to work with SMEs, although they usually tend to work with bigger corporates.

Ms.Maren Richter – Innovation Policy Expert Germany, who was also associated with the  pilot Innovation Voucher Programme  of TFSC opined that it can be a catalyst for enabling SMEs to  grow faster.

There was quite unanimity that   USP of ‘IVP’ is  fast, easy and flexible support to innovation which enables SMEs to identify their problem area and help them get it addressed through professionals having that particular expertise.

On the need for a separate innovation support programme, there were opinions  that, it can be merged with various other schemes being run by the government, which  would give flexibility to the entrepreneurs and help bring different programmes together.

However, the majority voice was IVP should operate as a separate scheme for clarity and focus.

Senior Expert from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Paris, Antonio Fanelli, said that success of IVP   mainly depends upon the availability of an  ecosystem for SME development rather than one particular factor.

Sharing views on whether the IVP should be centralized or decentralized keeping in view the diversified topography of India, most of the experts said the scheme should be designed in a way that it should be a centre - state initiative which may be  delegated to  industry associations for implementation.

Some experts also said that IVP should  follow a hybrid model based on need assessment.

The workshop is conducted within the framework of the Indo-German Bilateral Development Cooperation programme on “Innovation Promotion in MSMEs”; jointly implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and the office of DC MSME, Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MoMSME), Government of India. (KNN Bureau)