The creative industries are experiencing rapid growth, both in Denmark and globally. A steadily increasing part of the economy is dependent on the ability of companies to manage creative processes, and to integrate creative input into commercially feasible products or services.

There are good reasons for this structural change in the economy and in the composition of priorities within companies. The process of globalisation and the associated exposure to new competition impel more and more companies to utilise advantages of outsourcing or building transplants in China, India or other low-cost countries with an abundant supply of cheap labour as well as world-class technological competences and top-skilled engineers.

Consequentially, the levels of employment, export and value added in high-cost parts of the world increasingly rely on activities that are difficult or impossible to outsource.

Creative activities are often highly dependent on extremely complex and situated input from a variety of sources having intimate knowledge of small but commercially vital trends and tendencies in final demand. By being socially embedded, the creative activities are often quite 'sticky' in their locational requirements and therefore equally difficult to outsource.

Creative activities usually only constitute a part of what a company does, but in some cases - like the production of fashion, music, films, games, advertisements etc. - the creative processes make up the competitive core. In these 'creative industries', market conditions are often highly uncertain and rapidly changing. Companies face a great challenge in constantly having to innovate and source new creative inputs in order to maintain a competitive edge.

Nevertheless, the challenge of managing creative input or in-house creative activities goes far deeper. It reflects a fundamental characteristic feature of the basic incentive structure of creative or artistic producers or employees: that the artistic output is seen as having a value in itself regardless of whether it can be sold or not. Good designers, musicians, animators, film directors, script writers and other creative people will often opt out of companies with what is perceived as too strong a focus on the commercial side.

At the same time it is broadly recognised that some sort of business approach is needed to sustain creative processes and make them available to the market. Managers must, thus, negotiate a knife-edge path between commercial success and creativity enhancement. Even front edge management tools are often proven insufficient to cope with the challenges of promoting creative or artistic efforts, while simultaneously enabling their transformation into a commercially viable stream of products or services.

It requires knowledge and skills above and beyond, what is included in standard management or business economics textbooks that are historically based on experiences from the old world of manufacturing and commodity exchange.

It is this gap between the tools and theories readily available in the standard syllabus and the common challenges facing managers when dealing with creative activities that constitute the outset of the CBP.