OREANDA-NEWS. March 11, 2014. SEB Pank will hold “Innovation Lab 2014”, a workshop for small and medium-sized companies (SME), with the aim of helping SMEs to go to new markets or apply innovative technologies in order to gain more customers and increase their turnover.

Workshops will be run in all three of the Baltic States, and a total of 600 innovation-minded SMEs – including 200 in Tallinn – will participate in them.

The workshop will feature presentations by Lindegaard (Denmark), Strategic Consultant and Lecturer at 15inno; Patrick Stahler (Switzerland), Partner at the Fluidminds think tank; Patrick van der Pijl (Netherlands), Managing Director at Business Models Inc; and John Reynolds (UK), Director and Partner at SAMI Consulting. A practical workshop on “iEngines innovation models” will be conducted by Alar Kolk, President of the European Innovation Academy. Separate panel discussions will be held on entering markets abroad: the EU, Asia and the United States.

The innovation workshop will analyse the business problems of approximately 40 companies, and as a result each of them will pick four directions for innovation to help the businesses make progress.

For the detailed programme of “Innovation Lab 2014”, to be held at the Mektory innovation and business centre (Raja 15, Tallinn), go to: www.seb.ee/innovatsioonilabor.

“The innovation workshop will provide customers with inspiration and tools to make the company’s innovation plan a reality. There is a widespread myth that innovation is costly and complicated for a company. To a point that is precisely how it is; however, an undiscovered opportunity amongst small and medium-size companies is more likely at issue. Several areas of innovation are now much more accessible than small or medium-sized companies would think”, noted Eerika Vaikmae-Koit, Head of SEB Retail Banking and Technology Area, who will open the workshop.

According to Vaikmae-Koit, future success will be enjoyed by companies capable of thinking differently, seeing new business opportunities, testing them quickly and also reorientating themselves, if successful.  “Every company will come away from the innovation brainstorming events organised by SEB with practical suggestions on how to manage risks that the business innovation journey entails,” Vaikmae-Koit added.

According to her, as it has been providing its clients with consultations over the past two years, SEB has been mapping systematically SMEs’ plans for the future: whether they are planning to expand their company, engage in innovation or change their line of business instead. “The results reveal that more than half the companies see their staying power in innovation, since export markets are neither stable nor predictable. Only innovation can be the key to staying power,” noted Vaikmae-Koit.