Albanian Enterprises Lag Behind in Innovation

TIRANA, November 10

The pace of innovation is slow in Albania, official data from the Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) show, suggesting businesses have a long way to go in modernizing their activities, models, products, and markets.
INSTAT conducted a survey from 2017 to 2019 regarding the innovative activity in enterprises with more than 10 employees. The report produced at the end of the survey showed that 38.3 percent of businesses reported engaging in innovative activity in 2017-2019. Of the surveyed enterprises, 42.4 percent of those operating in the services sector reported undertaking innovative activities, compared to 34 percent of those operating in the industry sector.

In terms of employee numbers, businesses with more than 250 employees were the most innovative, with almost 67.9 percent of those enterprises reporting innovative behavior.
Moreover, the report shows that 25.3 percent of the surveyed businesses undertook product innovation while 32.9 percent conducted new or improved existing business processes.
Further on, 35.4 percent of the businesses that reported product innovative activity, introduced goods or services that were new in the market.
To undertake innovative activity, about 30.2 percent of the companies cooperated with other businesses, scientific organizations, or partners. This indicator was higher, 36.9 percent, for companies with between 50 and 249 staff.

The report findings also show that only 11.3 percent of the surveyed companies invested in the purchase of new hardware or software, which they used for the first time.
Overall, 61.7 percent of the surveyed businesses did not undertake any form of innovative activity in 2017-2019. However, the report does not provide information on the reasons why businesses did not invest to innovate or modernize their processes.

Read also: Why Outsourcing to Albania?
Why Outsource Software Development to Eastern Europe

Source: INSTAT

Photo Credit: Business Innovation by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images