Five Balkan countries, including Macedonia, will work on a platform aimed at boosting the competitiveness and innovation of business entities. Innotools for companies to implement their new business ideas.

Representatives of six organizations from Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania and Macedonia promoted the so-called "InnoPlatform", a two-year project supported by the Interreg-Program of the European Union, designed as a way to support the opportunities, capacities and knowledge of small and medium-sized enterprises in the region.

- In order for a company to be competitive and sustainable it must be innovative. It must constantly introduce new products and services, but at the same time be able to change its internal processes, to change the way it organizes its resources and how to realize its revenues, said Dr. Andrijana Bogdanovska, project manager of "InnoPlatform" .

The competitiveness ranking carried out by relevant entities such as the World Economic Forum and the World Innovation Index show that when it comes to competitiveness and innovation among national economies and companies in them, Balkan-Mediterranean region countries without exception lag behind EU countries and developed economies.

- In the world we live in, we have to get used to the fact that changes are part of our everyday life. If companies do not learn how to survive in such a world, they will fail, which in the end adversely affects the economies themselves, emphasized Dr. Bogdanovska.

In the framework of the project "InnoPlatform", a comprehensive, complex research on the real needs of small and medium enterprises will be conducted, which would be reflected in the development of appropriate tools for improving the innovativeness and competitiveness of business entities.

- The goal is not just to get a good idea. All companies are developing novelties, but unfortunately 90 percent of them are not able or have failed to realize potentially good business ideas. As Dr. Bogdanovska explained, the project "InnoPlatform" will offer tools that will enable small and medium enterprises to be more successful in introducing and implementing innovations in their business.

All the five countries involved in this project will establish the so-called Centers of Excellence in innovation that will work to improve the access of small businesses to knowledge and expertise in the field of innovation.