- An innovation project for small and medium-sized businesses.
Small and medium-sized businesses may find it difficult to locate the necessary resources and funds for innovative measures. Or maybe they are not aware of how to integrate innovation and subsequently implement new initiatives in the company.

A new innovative partnership
The project InnAware is going to do something about that. The aim of the project is to disseminate knowledge of innovation in practice as well as the art of implementation among small and medium-sized businesses. It is a partnership between CBS, the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, and the Initiative for Creativity and Innovation (IKI).
- It is the first time we see this kind of collaboration between resourceful capacities from the corporate sector, innovation experts, professors from CBS and MBA students. We hope that InnAware encourages to similar innovation stimulating projects among small and medium-sized businesses in Denmark, says Steffen Hedebrandt, Project Manager for InnAware.
Six chosen companies within software and consulting engineering, among other things, are subjects of a case to be solved and implemented in the day-to-day operations during the next nine months. They are assisted by international MBA students from CBS as well as innovation experts from IKI.

Business Camp
The project starts in September and is followed by a Business Camp in October. The camp is arranged in cooperation with Marketing Consulting Service, who previously organised Arla Business Camp and Danfoss Innovation Camp.
- The working teams meet for 12 intensive hours and develop new strategies, concepts and products, which is a process that normally takes several months. The ideas are then going to be presented to a jury composed of innovation experts from CBS and Danish chief executives, says Steffen Hedebrandt.

Companies share their expertise
Unlike many other projects, InnAware also puts focus on the implementation of the solutions. It all takes place in two rounds of which the companies are responsible.
- The goal of the entire project is to show Danish small and medium-sized companies how to work with innovation and implementation. We hope to arrange something with a media partner in order to disseminate the knowledge, which is obtained by the companies throughout this process. We are also going to make a website on which we will post our experiences successively. In this way, everybody is able to learn from this project, says Steffen Hedebrandt.

Do your company want to join?
Send a business case before 1st September to Project Manager Steffen Hedebrandt ( sh.info@cbs.dk) of approx. 10 lines in which you describe the actual problem that your company wishes to solve in cooperation with the working team available at the time.