Businesses assess innovation

Many economic development specialists are calling the current business climate the “New Economy” and are encouraging businesses to be innovative as they strive to be more competitive in this tough environment.

As small and mid-sized Iowa companies contemplate their position in this new economy, Iowa Manufacturing Extension Partnership (IMEP), part of Iowa State University Extension, is preparing to help. IMEP is bringing a new philosophy -- innovation as a company value -- to clients’ overall business strategy.

IMEP is pressing forward with an effort to build a repeatable way to evaluate Iowa companies’ preparedness to be innovative.

“We are currently working with a pilot company as we establish an evaluation tool,” said Tom Noteboom, IMEP associate director. “We are seeing opportunities or the need for innovation where profit margins are shrinking due to a mature product line. We see opportunity to apply innovation in places where existing markets are no longer providing the level of company growth desired and where staffing has been limited to a critically small group.”

IMEP’s desire to develop a formal approach to building innovation into a company is similar to creating a formal approach to any other business function, like marketing or production. It is seeing innovation flourishing in companies that continuously scan the environment for better methods, markets, workers, etc.

“IMEP is in the business of transforming companies, and transformation is not possible without embracing innovation as a company culture,” said Willem Bakker, IMEP director.

IMEP clients -- potentially any Iowa company with 500 or fewer employees -- soon will have the innovative assessment available as the first step in that transformation. The assessment will occur as trained IMEP account managers respond to company requests for innovation assessments. Account managers then can enlist expert assistance for the company, moving innovations into a natural routine of company culture and mechanisms.

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• Last update: September 2001