On June 14th, KIM organised a new edition of the KIMconference, “Innovation as a business growth driver”. In this brochure, we have collected some of the thoughts, knowledge and lessons learned by those attending the event and KIM’s team. We would like to thank the speakers and the audience, who have shared with us their knowledge and thoughts about the corporate entrepreneurship model, the best ways of implement and nance it, and how to adapt basic research to market needs in order to allow greater competitiveness and business growth based on improvements in innovation.

1. On June 14th, KIM organised a new edition of the KIMconference, “Innovation as a business growth
driver”. In this brochure, we have collected some of the thoughts, knowledge and lessons learned
by those attending the event and KIM’s team.
We would like to thank the speakers and the audience, who have shared with us their knowledge
and thoughts about the corporate entrepreneurship model, the best ways of implement and finance
it, and how to adapt basic research to market needs in order to allow greater competitiveness and
business growth based on improvements in innovation.
“Innovation is one of the most important resources
we have to promote economic recovery. We need
to make the companies realize that innovation is
continuity”.
Jordi Baiget i Cantons Conseller d’Empresa i Coneixement
Generalitat de Catalunya
(Catalan Government)
1.
KIMconference
15 things we learned at
KIMconference 2016
June 14th
, 2016
Palau Macaya, Barcelona
“It’s not easy to get significant results from
classical dynamics of corporate R & D + i,
because if you don’t have ownership, passion
and commitment -more common in startups,
nothing happens. We must generate dynamics
in which these two worlds, startup and large
businesses, have a point of synthesis. And this
point is the corporate entrepreneurship”.
2. “We have a structured process to transfer
our technology. Between 5 % and 10 % of
patents are used, and the rest is a source of
cost. You have to give freedom to the researchers
if we want them to get something good. What
to do with the rest of patents? I recommend
minding unused product portfolio because they
can be applied to another area of activity”.
3.
Andrea Marcello Intellectual Property Counsel
Philips
Xavier Marcet President
Lead to Change (LTD)
“The challenge is to talk about tech transfer
in the business environment, because com-
panies are not interested in Tech Transfer but
innovation and business”.
4.
Sam Waes ESA Technology Broker Network Manager
Verhaert
“Something to keep in mind for researchers is that after
lots of researches, lots of papers, years and years, it does
not work when you are happy because it is ready. You need
to start thinking in how you are going to sell it years before it is
proved it works. You have to do the two things in parallel”.
5.
Stephen Dunne Managing Director
Starlab Barcelona
“We wanted to detect the employees who wanted to develope
something new or want to do things in a different way, so we
had some calls with them, and then the ideas went selected by a
committee. But in that process we also go for those who were angry,
complaining, those who thought the company was not doing things
well. We told them ‘Ok,nowisyourturntostartanentrepreneurship
initiative’”.
6.
Julián Vinué Director
Wayra Barcelona (Telefónica)
“How can you bring a research result to
the market if you start from the solution
and not from the problem? And if you
don’t understand the difference between the
user and the costumer, who is going to give
you the money?”.
Andrea di Anselmo Vice President
META Group
7. “For us, in order to accept a project, the
team is 80 % or 90 % of it. In second
place, the project needs to match with our
core business and in third place, we look at scala-
bility, want a project that can grow”.
8.
Joan Albà Founding Partner
Fluidra Accelera
“Something you may want to look at
when you are selecting your investor is
that he should have enough resources
to follow you on when you are for the financing
runs, because typically you will always need a
new investor in the next financing run. If your
new investor sees that your existing investor is
putting a little more money in the company, that
gives a signal of strength to the new investor”.
10.
Óscar Farrés Investment Manager
European Investment Fund (EIF)
“Even in a very conservative industry as ours -security
printings, it’s possible to work in open innovation. Firstly,
we need external help because we don’t have experts in
every technology (for example, we don’t have a chemical plant).
And secondly, we think our patents could be useful for other
markets and we would like to get back the return of our investment.
So we have signed an agreement with different entities when
something is interesting for both parts”.
12.
Paloma Varela R&D+i and Engineering Director
Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre (FNMT)
“The intrinsic motivation to initiate corporate entre-
preneurship is given by three components: mastering to
develop and learn new things, autonomy to be able to
take your own decisions and propose to work in something
important for you, for the company and for the society. In our
company we don’t look for entrepreneurs, we just create the
conditions for people to say ‘Hey, I’m here and I have an idea’”.
9.
Juan Luis Rodríguez
Sánchez del Álamo
Deputy Director of Innovation Projects
Repsol
“First thing for innovating in a market that already exist is
to learn from the weakness of the existing products and the
technology, see which kind off applications are not covered
in the market, and see how to do the technology differentiation,
a disruption. Then there is always a new business creation. For
example, in the printing market, we have moved from transactio-
nal (I give you ink and you pay for the ink) to contractual (you only
pay for what you use)”.
11.
Josep Tarradas R&D Director
Hewlett-Packard
Our challenge in technology transfer is
the gap. The gap has always existed and
don’t turn all researchers into entrepre-
neurs and all entrepreneurs into researchers. Mind
that gap. We need to thing about ways to reach
that gap.
13.
Sam Waes ESA Technology Broker Network Manager
Verhaert
(TalkingaboutthenewI+Ddynamics)
“Companies are starting to have
experience in the complexity of how to
select innovative ideas. But complication is
not the same of complexity. A complicated
world produces problems that you can solve
by knowledge; complexity world produces
paradoxes that need another kind of solution.
Sometimes you need not only the internal
knowledge of your industry; sometimes you
need another kind of people and attitudes.
The role of startups could be essential”.
Xavier Marcet President
Lead to Change (LTD)
14 “What we look for in startups is
strategic return and internal support,
and we want these companies to
help us to strength our core competences or
help us in market intelligence. Team, business
unit, business model, market opportunity and
competitive advantages that companies are
able to generate in a sustainable way are keys
of our choice. We want startups to be flexible
and fast and not to be absorbed by our slower
pace”.
15.
Marta Borao Investment Manager
Repsol Energy Ventures