Interview of Mr. Jacques Gautray, member of the European Service Innovation Think Tank
Name: Jacques Gautray, OSEO, France
Short presentation
Mr. Jacques Gautray has a PhD in electronics. He started his career as an expert in contact with SMEs for the evaluation and financing process of innovative projects in electronics (Hardware and Software) at the head office level for 8 years. He then moved to manage 3 regional departments for 7 years in Nord Pas de Calais, Champagne Ardenne and Paris. He has a long experience with start-ups, incubators, European funding policy and the innovation network all over France. From 2003 to 2005, he was OSEO national coordinator for IRC network and was the contact point for the IRC project officer.
He joined the Department of European Partnership in September 2008 as a senior project manager and is in charge of three EU projects:
· KIS PIMS - services in renewable energy,
· REMake – Eco innovation in recycling and resource efficiency,
· GreenConServe – services in intelligent and sustainable buildings.
He has participated in a few EU workshops like HiGrowth SMEs policy and how to cope with innovation in services. He is also representing OSEO in the EPISIS Think Tank project.
Service Innovations in France
Please describe briefly the significance of service innovations and programmes/tools boosting them in France?
Since 1979 service innovation in France has been focused on integration of ICT in all industrial applications. In 2008, OSEO decided to participate in a pilot project called Kis Pims dealing with the renewable energy sector. This Europe INNOVA project was targeting service innovation and took place in 3 countries: France, Austria and Finland. In September 2010, a second Europe INNOVA project (Greening the Construction Sector through service innovation initiatives - GreenConServe) was initiated with the participation of OSEO. The GreenConServe is running until September 2012.
What have been the role of the public sector and especially the role of OSEO in the context of service innovations?
Service innovation is contributing strongly to job creation in France, and as a public body working for Ministry of Research and Ministry of Economy and Finance, we considered it was a challenge to experiment these projects. The voucher systems are financed by public funds, grants from OSEO was delivered to the most promising projects after assessment by a selection committee.
What are the lessons to be learnt from France (e.g. best practices, tools, instruments)?
The lessons learnt with respect to service innovation from the Kis Pims project:
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the concept of service innovation needs to be further defined, since it is not well understood by SMEs and not enough explained in the early communication efforts. Both Service and Innovative words need to be detailed;
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the voucher instrument appeared most attractive for start-ups and very small enterprises (most of them having less than 10 employees) in the process of closing the funding of their development projects;
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the voucher model of 15 000 € grant is attractive to small companies (less than 50 employees), at the same time, the small companies frequently show difficulty to finance the complement of 50% finance since OSEO can only give a grant of 50% maximum.
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the voucher amount up to 15.000 € looked quite well sized to deliver enough added value from the expertise to prepare for a step 2 funding;
The Task Force 5 of the EPISIS project focuses on internationalisation of high-growth service companies. Venture capital and business angels are considered to be very significant for the growth of service companies. Please describe the French experiences in this context.
We have not yet found any fast-growing company in service innovation after a voucher is delivered. The interesting issue is that delivering a voucher (grant) to a SME and linking the same company to external expertise facilitates access to venture capital or bank loans.
Three building blocks of the European Service Innovation Strategy
The essential part of The European Service Innovation Think Tank work has consisted of the preparation of European service innovation strategy. The strategy is intended to promote service innovation at the European and national level.
One of the strategic pillars relates to “New types of innovation processes” which focus on the company level. Based on your experience at an innovation agency, what do you consider the main success factors for the growth of service companies?
Public loans and grants can help SMEs to start, but it is never the main reason for continuous growth. What is considered helpful is to create positive atmosphere for the SMES:
1. Linking SMEs to larger companies is a facilitator of access to new markets, often a win-win operation for the SME and the larger company
2. OSEO has a public electronic platform where SMEs searching for investors and investors searching for good projects can meet and make business. http://capitalpme.oseo.fr/
3. Guarantee is another measure to facilitate private and bank loans in SMEs. OSEO guarantees about 4 000 million Euros each year to link SME to bank loans
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