Let's use our cleverness

New Zealand firms would be more successful with more research and development, says CRAG.

CRAG (Capitalising on Research & Development Action Group) is a business and government team working on achieving more commercialisation of research.

Today CRAG will release a guide to better commercialisation: Idea to Impact.

Idea to Impact puts R&D into plain language and provides information resources to help firms realise their plans for innovation. It contains the success stories of eleven New Zealand companies that have gained market share with innovative products and services.

CRAG Chairman, Business NZ’s Phil O’Reilly, says they are all typical New Zealand firms. Some started out as backyard operations but all have grown because they utilised their clever ideas and brought them to market.

“There is a message here for us,” Mr O’Reilly said. “On a ranking of countries, New Zealand often comes in first or second place for inventiveness - we are very good at coming up with great ideas.

“But when it comes to capitalising on those ideas – building a business and making money out of them – we rank very poorly. Basically, we are not capitalising on our cleverness, a syndrome that’s playing out in many companies throughout New Zealand right now.

“It’s worth remembering that most rewards go to those who bring the ideas to market.”

Idea to Impact will be launched in Wellington today by CRAG and the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology.

Idea to Impact can be downloaded here from www.businessnz.org.nz and can be downloaded here from www.morst.govt.nz