Tomorrow has become more uncertain. That is the reality for many companies in time to come. Now more than ever it is crucial to be able to adapt, see new opportunities and be ready to go new ways. In this case, an innovation readiness is a determining factor.
At FRECON, we have considered how to best facilitate both customers’ and our own continued development by focusing on the unmet and perhaps emerging needs that exist in the market.
“During recent months, we have been working on structuring our thoughts to make innovation a more integral part of our strategy. Overall, the goal is to see new opportunities to meet the needs of our customers and their customers by taking on new paths,” says CCO Michael Elefsen from FRECON and continues:
Well-trained readiness
”The best way to help our customers is by having an organized and well-trained innovation readiness, where we give our skilled and experienced engineers the opportunity to put all their ideas, thoughts and dreams into play. At the same time, we need structure, so that we end up with something useful, which can be something we move forward with internally or in collaboration with our customers – and perhaps with funds, e.g. from the EU.”
The innovation readiness has already been taken into use throughout Spring and Summer of 2020. As collaboration partner with the Danish Industry Foundation, FRECON has been participating in the genstartNU project (translates restartNOW). A project supported by funding which helps strengthen SMEs through the crisis by transforming innovation projects into new business opportunities.
Hidden projects come back to life
This has turned out to be a good decision. Through several innovation workshops and direct dialogues with many companies, a great many ideas have emerged that may have been hidden away, forgotten, or simply not moved forward.
“It has a great effect that our skilled engineers can talk directly with the customer’s engineers or others with technical insight,” Michael Elefsen explains. “There might only be a sketch, a drawing or something very vague. In any case, the dialogue has proved to put many new ideas into play.”
Funding can pave the way for many projects
Among customers, great interest has been shown in participating in an innovation project supported by funding. FRECON is thus well underway with the many consulting projects under the genstartNU project, and due to the great interest, several are on the waiting list. The companies are thrilled that FRECON can help them describe their ideas and send off an application.
“In connection to this, it is important that the companies know that this is their projects and not FRECON’s,” says Michael Elefsen. “We have the competencies to help them move forward if it turns out to be a good idea, after we have finished the initial part of the process. At the same time, we have also identified several projects that we continue to work on internally – also by means of our competent and organized innovation work.”