Innovation in the Norwegian Business Enterprise Sector 2010-2012

The overall picture of innovation activities shows relatively small changes for the period 2010-2012 in comparison with the previous survey which covered the period 2008-2010. The percentage of enterprises that introduced either innovative products or processes fell by 1 percent.

The results further show that the share of enterprises that introduced new or significantly improved goods went down from 14 to 12 percent, while enterprises that introduced services fell from 7 to 6 percent. In addition, the percentage of companies that introduced new processes went down from 13 to 11 percent.

The share of companies that introduced marketing innovation or organisational innovation both increased by 1 percent compared with the previous survey. 21 percent of the enterprises introduced organisational innovations while 22 percent introduced market innovations.

The share of business enterprises sector’s turnover that came from new and significantly improved goods also decreased somewhat, from 5.7 percent in 2010 to 4.9 percent in 2012. Overall, turnover from product innovations which were new to the enterprises’ market amounted to a higher share than product innovations which were new only to the enterprise. Concurrently, there were a lower number of companies that introduced product innovations during the period 2010-2012 than for the period 2008-2010, a decrease from 19 to 16%.

For the first time the innovation survey for 2010-2012 included questions regarding the degree to which business enterprise sector had entered into procurement contracts to supply goods or services to the public sector. It also covered to what extent this required – or otherwise led to – innovation activity in enterprises. The results showed that 26 percent of the enterprises had such contracts from the Norwegian public sector, while 3 percent reported contracts with foreign public sector institutions. Among the companies that had entered into such contracts, a total of 19 percent reported that it had resulted in innovation activity in the enterprise.