Sopra Steria: Why Open Innovation collaboration is essential for the future of public services #techUKDigitalPS
techUK publishes results of seventh annual GovTech SME Survey #techUKDigitalPS
Today we are pleased to publish the results of our seventh annual GovTech SME Survey.
This year’s survey analysed the opinions of over 100 techUK SME members who work in or aspire to work in the public sector on a range of topics, from how effectively they feel the government has acted on its commitment to helping small businesses break into the public sector, to how they feel about addressing Social Value.
SMEs are vital to the UK economy, and in the tech sector they are a great source of innovation and ingenuity that the government should support and tap into. The GovTech Survey shows that there is still work to be done to capitalise on the benefits that working with SMEs can bring.
Challenges are abundant in all organisations, both in business and in the Public Sector with economic slowdowns and supply chain breakdowns, unprecedented competition for talent and game-changing tech solutions hitting the market, there are many issues for organisations to navigate. Open Innovation can help address these issues in several ways.
From trend to mainstream
In collaboration with Ipsos and INSEAD professors, we carried out a comprehensive survey of 1,648 startups and corporate organisations, both public and private, from 10 European countries to evaluate how corporates were addressing challenges through collaboration between larger corporates and smaller startups.
The results show that open innovation collaboration is now mainstream, with 72% of European corporates that responded having already launched Open Innovation projects with startups. And 67% rated these collaborations as important or mission critical for their organisation's strategy.
Amid a gloomy economic outlook, corporates are prioritising short-term initiatives over long-term projects and consequently downscale innovation plans that lack concrete financial benefit. In turn, this is making companies more risk averse with R&D projects with unpredictable and long-term ROIs becoming frequent casualties, losing out to traditional, core business activities in the battle for budget allocation.
Our research found that for those not yet engaging in Open Innovation the biggest blockers are legal and regulatory issues (14%) and low risk tolerance (13.7%).
Consumers are at the heart of everything, but their demands and expectations are growing, alongside ever-shrinking loyalty: welcome to today’s hyper-competitive commercial marketplace. Businesses are therefore in constant battle to grow and expand their competitive advantage, with smaller budgets.
Unlocking the Power of Collaboration
For businesses, Open Innovation is a way to boost innovation capabilities while avoiding the risks and expenses commonly associated with in-house innovation, so those essential R&D projects do not have to be stopped in their tracks.
Open Innovation is all about collaboration between external parties to generate and develop ideas, technologies, and products. It is a powerful way to harness SME knowledge from outside of your business to enable a more successful transformation of public services, taking co-creation one step further by building an extended innovation ecosystem.
The increased interest in Open Innovation can perhaps be attributed to a higher awareness of the models and rising demand for innovation. Covid-19 normalised remote working and helped businesses become familiar with collaborative tools that support SME partnerships.
In my role, I have actively championed working with industry bodies, like techUK, as a structured way to develop and grow our eco-system and ensure we play an active role in bringing focused engagement within the public sector. This means bringing all the innovation from within the wider Sopra Steria group and our SME network across Europe and beyond.
By inviting and enabling a wider group of people to participate in problem-solving, Open Innovation is already reshaping the products, services, and business practices of some of the world’s largest conglomerates. With SME support through Open Innovation, we’re able to move beyond the silo mentality of traditional business R&D, to successfully deliver truly transformative public services that meet the needs of citizens, civil servants- and our wider society.
This article was written by Tom McCann, Growth & Marketing Director UK, Sopra Steria. Tom is the Growth & Marketing Director for Sopra Steria in the UK, responsible for their go-to-market strategy. Tom is also a member of the techUK Public Services Board and was the Founding Chair of the Central Government Council. Having previously led the Central Government business for Sopra Steria, Tom was responsible for the delivery in a number of the pathfinding GDS Digital Exemplar projects in Central Government and is passionate about the transformative benefits of technology and user-centred design in public services. In addition, Tom has extensive experience in Regional government in the devolved administrations and, in his time 8 years at the Director level with the ‘Big 4’, has led and developed consulting teams in Europe and APAC delivering transformation projects in Public Sector. To learn more about Tom, please connect with him via Twitter and LinkedIn.
To learn more about Sopra Steria, please visit their LinkedIn and Twitter.
SMEs are vital to the UK economy, and in the tech sector they are a great source of innovation and ingenuity that the government should support and tap into. The GovTech Survey shows that there is still work to be done to capitalise on the benefits that working with SMEs can bring.
To read more from #techUKDigitalPS Week, check out our landing page here.
You can also follow the campaign on techUK's Twitter and LinkedIn - #techUKDigitalPS.