New Delhi, Nov 24 (KNN) The two-day international policy workshop on ‘Innovation Voucher’, jointly organized by GIZ and Office of the DC-MSME, kick-started in the national capital today.

The programme has been organized in partnership with industry body FISME and TFSC.

Addressing the workshop, Additional Secretary and DC, Ministry of MSME, SN Tripathi said, “There is a need to make India more and more innovative and Innovation Voucher is a concept which the country would like to adopt.”

Citing example of how Blackberry and Nokia, despite owning enormous  patents, lost its market to companies like Apple and Samsung, Tripathi said innovation is very important but commercializing innovation is even more important.

“MSMEs need to innovate according to the market need and before it is too late,” Tripathi said adding that emphasis on quality is also critical for the sector to remain competitive.

The first day has been designed to understand and analyze the design, structure, different implementation mechanisms as well as different approaches, success stories and risks involved in implementing Innovation Vouchers.

Senior Expert from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Paris, Antonio Fanelli, said, “It is a well-known point that Innovation is behind economic growth of a country.”

Fanelli said SMEs cannot do innovation all internally and need support in terms of proactive policies, fund, marketing assistance, credit line, activities etc.

The expert also opined that Innovation Vouchers should be used in the companies which have never done this before in order to help them realize their potential.

Wolfgang Leidig, Programme Director, Private Sector Development, GIZ, said, “Nobody in the industry can afford to be at standstill and it is the better qualified product which makes the difference.”

Stressing that it is ultimately innovation which is essential for remaining competitive, Leidig said SMEs have to work with industry, academia, government and institutes to innovate.

The Secretary General of Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME) Anil Bhardwaj in his welcome remarks said the economies now are innovation driven rather than resource or efficiency driven. “When we are competing on value and not cost, it is called innovation.”

The day two will be devoted to analyze the appropriateness, feasibility of Innovation Voucher for India and develop a roadmap for a potential adaptation of the instrument.

Experts from Indian, Germany, Austria & Sweden along with officials from Centre and State were present at the event.

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.

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.

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)