Innovation of Small and Medium Enterprises in the Emirates of Dubai - Assignment Example

Task Critique of Innovation Policies: The Effect of Government Interventions on SMEs Innovativeness in Dubai Introduction The aim of this paper is to critique the Innovation policies that constitute government interventions to boost innovation of Small and Medium Enterprises in the Emirates of Dubai. It seeks to analyze the innovation policies and other models used by the government to support the innovation by identifying the strong points and weak points. It is true that innovation is the key to social and economic development of any country because it leads to efficiency, competitiveness and improvement of the welfare of the citizens. Through innovation new ideas are generated and shaped to solve prevailing problems. There is a strong link between innovation and development as government researches indicate. The government researches oh hoe to help businesses achieve innovation is a big step towards innovation in general. The scientific and statistical approaches adopted by government for finding ways of supporting innovation is subject to analysis to find out their true outcome. The innovation policy The researches directed by the government towards technological exploitation and industrial exploitation in which maximum support is given to research and development is one of the best ways of achieving innovation in a country. The partnership between academia and industries to jointly solve all problems regarding innovation is helpful because the industries identify the real problems but the academia does research on the real problems. This leads to good solution of the problems. The concept of National Innovation System therefore one of the most appropriate approaches of inspiring innovation because all players like the universities, research centers, venture capital funds jointly provide the knowledge and resources needed for innovation. However the point missed is the need for mechanism or a formal body that would coordinate between industry and academia so that it handles the different stakeholders as equals, leading to objective interactions. This autonomous body should control the government departments and all institutions of higher learning to facilitate innovation (Hemert & Nijkamp, 2010, 365). The efforts of the government to promote innovation by creating the right environment may be suitable in enabling the society to develop the necessary capacity so that all the new ideas may be acquired, adopted, improved and implemented to solve the prevailing problems. This should be coupled with commercialization of ideas helps in realizing their full potential. The NIS concept can serve better when customized for each sector of the economy and for each region to suit the unique situations that may be prevailing. This may lead to better strategies, policies and coordination of different stakeholders at local, national and international levels of different industries. The policy makers ought to appreciate that the unique political, economic and social conditions of the country must be taken into account when seeking solution to any problem. The missing point is the how the general knowledge or technology can be contextualized because different technologies available in other countries must therefore adopt in a flexible manner to enable them suit the local problems in each industry. It is true that the universal knowledge must be adopted within a context to solve the unique problems of each society, due to differences in economies of scale and stages of development. This is true also that all human beings have some knowhow and therefore knowledge sharing should be facilitated in order to boost innovation. This can be achieved thorough good interaction between all actors in the system such as universities, research centers, inventors and consultants who jointly create successful innovation. It is also agreeable that the government can also boost innovation by recognizing the entrepreneurial spirit which can be integrated into the Innovation System to give them opportunities for bringing their products to the current market. The SMEs should be cushioned against the many risks that are higher in the first five years of business. The government may use the SMEs to achieve because by their nature the businesses are flexible and dynamic and can always adopt the changes as compared to large organizations. The government can therefore easily inspire the small businesses to be more innovative. The methods to be used to protect entrepreneurs against the numerous risks should be specified to ensure suitability (Hemert & Nijkamp, 2010, 369). SMEs Innovativeness The government approach of using businesses, especially the SMEs in speeding innovation is good because they employ many people and their business model are always unique. The government should give them favorable environment and create a culture of innovation to enable the small businesses to add value to the market place. The government can therefore help such businesses a lot by creating an innovation friendly environment. The research and development activities can also be used to support such small businesses, as the government creates a free market economy in which the government intervenes to support innovations. The government policies and market forces should therefore be blended to ensure that the economy is stable, and competitive. With appropriate government interventions, the many problems which cause business failure and from the time of startup may be avoided. However how to work with numerous small businesses requires devolved systems and structures in each industry. The policymakers can help the innovation process if they have objective methods of measuring the innovativeness of SMEs, so that the government may select the most promising to be given direct government support. The basis for evaluating the innovativeness should be defined clearly by relying on Indexes which can be contextualized to suit the national or regional level. All the dimensions should be specified to produce a summary of Innovation Index. The index used should cover all the parameters; however the uniqueness of each business should not be ignored. The key areas to e emphasized when determining the innovativeness are necessary for each industry (Hemert & Nijkamp, 2010, 361). The paper should have emphasized that innovation needs of each sector of the economy varies and this should be factored in the Indices used to measure the innovativeness. The areas like product and technological innovativeness may be more appropriate than when organizational culture is used to determine innovativeness. A number of models that address all the important areas in each sector should be adopted to give indicators when assessing the innovativeness of any organization. The model used should assess innovativeness at the firm level, region level, and national level to get an accurate picture of any given industry, whether manufacturing or service sector of the economy should be comprehensive. The impact of service firms and their performance can also be used to measure the innovation rate, so that the government does not rely only on traditional indicators that only suit the manufacturing sector. This helps in analyzing each sector of the economy. However a composite strategy that utilizes may factors such as product, process and organizational innovations may indicate a good competitive advantage of one business over others. The missing point is the definition of the categories of SMEs plus other requirements and their registration has made it possible for their exact number to be known in each industry. Their classification into trading, manufacturing and service industries is useful in knowing the exact number of people employed in each industry. The classification by number would help in showing industry distribution of small businesses, which would be useful for balancing government resources and planning. The long-term economic development goals set by the government to sustain the Emirates’ SMEs such as creating favorable environment, providing the seed money and grooming the SMEs to become global enterprise are very encouraging. Direct government intervention efforts such as relief from taxation and financing as ways of enabling the entrepreneurs to start and grow their businesses should be done in a way that enables the owners of the businesses to develop the capacity to make their businesses more innovative. Conclusion The various interventions by the government to help SMEs to achieve innovation in all sectors of the economy in Dubai have made considerable progress. However a lot still remains to be done to ensure s perfect coordination between all the stakeholders and achieve a well structured program through which support is provided to all entrepreneurs. The diverse approached used by the government is a sure way of meeting diverse needs in different sectors of the economy who experiences different situations. Bibliography Hemert, P.V, and Nijkamp, P., 2010, Knowledge investments, business R&D and innovativeness of countries: A qualitative meta-analytic comparison, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, Vol. 77, pp 369–384. Read More