Jorge Portugal, diretor-general of COTEC, in an interview to Jornal Económico where he highlights that “There still remains a focus in the short-term action and the perception of a minor urgency on the antecipation and preparation to the change”.

How do you evaluate the innovation capacities of the Portuguese companies on the last years?

It’s an evolution in different speeds. Even though there’s no sectors with prominence, there’s clearly leaders in each sector. The companies of this first squad – integrated by the majority of the COTEC associates – with an enlightened leadership, qualified management and teams with big talent, has been playing with success the changing tendencies – technological, consumer or regulatory -, shortening the launching cycles of new and more customized and with bigger performance products, with more profound levels of internal and external business integration, whether it is on the conception and fabrication, on logistics, distribution or client service, with gains on time flexibility and response time to the market, resulting in a major productivity and efficiency.

Are those the main forces of the leader companies in innovation?

The leader companies in innovation demonstrate to have the simultaneous domain of management skills in every dimensions that determine the maturity on the innovation process – strategy, talent, management, risk management, intellectual property, cooperation and culture networks – systematically introducing news on the business process and improving the innovation investments, in order to skip the steps and to recover the delay, with cooperation, partnerships and learning incentives the group with a better position.

Have the companies’ leaderhips in Portugal already fully assumed in their management goals the need for innovation?

For the majority of the national business leaders , specially those who operate the exportation sector, the innovation it’s not an option, but a survival question for the companies’ leaders. There still remains, however, a focus in the short-term action and the perception of a minor urgency on anticipation and preparation for change.

Read the full interview HERE.

By Jornal Económico, January 2019