MWCC has published a report on “Innovation in Spain”. Innovation is a very profitable activity for companies. This is clear from the Business Innovation survey prepared by the INE and which allows us to know and assess the situation of innovation in our country.
Innovation is an activity that must meet specific characteristics such as novelty, creativity, uncertainty, systematicity, transferability and/or reproducibility. Within the Construction sector, innovation can be directed at different activities such as research into new concepts based on sustainability and quality of life, materials, development of new construction techniques, calculation tools, validation procedures, equipment, machinery…
Business physiognomy
The survey is addressed to the 159,513 companies that have more than nine employees and that represent 4.5% of the total; In other words, 95.5% of the Spanish business fabric has between none and nine workers, which is an obstacle to innovation since size is one of the variables that conditions this expense.
In the case of construction, companies with more than nine employees amount to 17,869, representing 4.3% of all companies in the sector.
Few innovative companies
Entering the results of the survey, of those 159,513 companies, only 13.2% make innovation expenses, a percentage that plummets to 6.9% in the case of the 17,869 construction companies.
Low spending on innovation in Spain and in the construction sector
The average expense per company for the whole amounts to 107,000 euros, in the construction sector that expense is 11,000, 10% of the total average, highlighting negatively the 3,000 euros spent, on average, by small companies.
If spending on innovation is related to turnover, for every 100 euros of turnover, Spanish companies invest 1.08 euros in innovation; In the case of the construction sector, for every 100 euros they invest 25 cents, that is, only 23% of the average.
Scarce employment generated by the activity
The employment generated by this activity is 23 jobs for every 10,000, falling in construction to five for every 10,000.
The employment data is relevant since it is considered as a sample of the training of the population to carry out this type of activity and, in the case of Spain, this image has a wide margin for improvement.
Strong impact on turnover
Innovative profitability is high, reaching a minimum of one to 17, that is, for every 100 euros spent on innovation, the turnover increases by 1,700 euros. In the construction sector, this ratio is at least 1 to 33.
Innovation figures
Innovation generates €286,628 million for companies, which represents 18.13% of their total turnover and 34.9% of the turnover of innovative companies.
For the construction sector, this amount is €6,197 million, which represents 8.3% of the overall construction turnover and 26% of the turnover of innovative companies in this sector.
Innovation in Europe and in the Autonomous Communities.
Anticipating future studies on the positioning of Spain in the European context, we can anticipate that, for every 100 euros dedicated to innovation in Spain, the Europe of the 27 allocates 255 euros and the Euro Zone 290 euros, leaving our country very below the average spending of European companies. However, not all the data is bad since the profitability of this investment is much higher in Spain. We spend less but better than Europe.
Lastly, and as part of another subsequent report, innovation by Autonomous Communities yields results that place the Basque Country as the region with the greatest investment effort and Madrid with the highest expenditure in absolute value.
You can download the report by clicking here.
