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3. Marketing and organisational innovations 2006–2008

A total of one third of all enterprises had adopted marketing or organisational innovations in 2006 to 2008. In manufacturing, the share of enterprises having adopted innovations was 31 per cent and in services 35 per cent.

Adoption of marketing and organisational innovations was otherwise characterised by the same general features as innovation activity connected to product and process innovations; adoption of marketing and organisational innovations grew with the increase in enterprise size and was more common in enterprises belonging to groups than in independent ones.

If innovation activity includes both product and process innovations and activities aimed at them and marketing and organisational innovations, the share of those engaged in innovation activity according to this extensive definition was 52 per cent in 2006 to 2008. Using the extensive definition, 56 per cent of the enterprises practised innovation activity in manufacturing and 49 per cent in service industries.

Prevalence of introduction of organisational innovations and targets of innovations

Every fourth enterprise had introduced organisational innovations. Adoption of organisational innovations was slightly more common in services than in manufacturing, the shares being, respectively, 27 and 22 per cent of all enterprises.

Organisational innovations were most often related to new business practices and new processes for organising responsibilities and decision-making. Adoption of innovations related to business practices - as innovations related to responsibilities and decision-making - was reported by 18 per cent of the enterprises. Instead, ten per cent reported introduction of innovations related to new ways of organising the enterprise’s external relations.

Enterprises felt the main targets of organisational innovations were to speed up responding to customer and sub-contractor/supplier needs and to improve the quality of enterprises’ products.

Prevalence of introduction of marketing innovations and objectives of innovations

Good one fifth of enterprises, 22 per cent, had introduced marketing innovations in 2006 to 2008. The share of those having adopted innovations was the same in manufacturing and services.

Marketing innovations were most often new practices for sales promotion. Innovations included in these were reported by 14 per cent of the enterprises. The second most significant marketing innovations were those linked to new pricing practices, which had been adopted by 13 per cent of the service enterprises, for example.

The key objective of marketing innovations was naturally to increase or maintain the market share; reaching new customer groups was slightly more important than attaining new geographical markets.

Source: Innovation 2008, Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Mervi Niemi (09) 1734 3263, tiede.teknologia@stat.fi

Director in charge: Leena Storgårds

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Updated 10.6.2010