An interview with Dr.-Ing. Petra Püchner, Steinbeis expert and Commissioner for Europe of the Minister of Economic Affairs, Labor and Tourism of Baden-Württemberg
That Dr.-Ing. Petra Püchner is every inch a committed European can be seen from the passion and enthusiasm that she brings to her work as Commissioner for Europe of the Minister of Economic Affairs, Labor and Tourism of Baden-Württemberg. Despite the rather unwieldy title, the role she has spent the last seven years in has proven to be the ultimate networking job. Püchner travels the length and breadth of Europe in order to bring together businesses and people from applied research and practice and strength innovation in Baden-Württemberg. In her capacity as a Steinbeis Entrepreneur at the Steinbeis IDEA Europe Institute, she works with her team to champion the interests of Baden-Württemberg’s businesses in Europe. In this interview with TRANSFER, she discusses where she currently sees the biggest barriers and need for action when it comes to equipping businesses for the challenges of the future.
Dr. Püchner, what skills and mindset do you think businesses need if they are to succeed in the future?
Times are hard at the moment, especially for businesses that feel overburdened by regulations. So there’s a lot of discontent in the business community at this time. What I think is needed now is for businesses to look ahead and identify the areas that will be key to their future competiveness. Digitalization is clearly one of these areas. But they also need to start thinking about the very latest developments like quantum technology. A huge amount of support, some of which is targeted specifically at SMEs, is already available in this area, for instance from Fraunhofer. Trumpf is one notable example – collaboration with Fraunhofer in Stuttgart helped this company achieve even better results through quantum technology.
But quantum technology is just one of several areas where SMEs can gain more experience with new technologies. It’s about finding out how these technologies can be applied and used to improve the business’s performance.
Skilled labor is also key for the future. At the moment, we’re seeing companies letting people go and heavily downsizing entire business units because they aren’t achieving the same market success, and their productivity is declining as a result. But new technologies will bring new opportunities, and businesses will need employees again to take advantage of them. So companies should ask themselves whether laying people off is really the best way forward, or whether they would be better advised to provide their employees with training in new technologies.
As you can see, there are a lot of areas that need working on. But it’s important not to overlook the current developments that will shape the future. There are lots of startups that can help: these guys are developing new technologies that they would love to implement in businesses. Things are far from easy for businesses at the moment, especially for SMEs who, as suppliers and technology developers, are important partners of large enterprises. Sudden changes call for new outlooks – and this can only mean looking to the future. Focusing on innovation is more important than ever before.
Where do you see the greatest need for action by companies and their employees?
I think employees are now willing to start learning new things again. They like working for their company and it’s in their interest to keep doing so. They want to keep abreast of the latest technologies, but this does of course involve a lot of training. We already provide a lot of support here in Baden-Württemberg, but it may not reach every level. And, as I said, there’s a danger that businesses will tend to lay off employees working in traditional areas and recruit people from the IT industry or other sectors with a lot of future potential instead. The thing is, there aren’t enough people out there with these skills. In addition, government departments employ key skilled professionals who are needed by businesses. The government would be better off working more closely with startups, who are in any case able to deliver the required products or services more quickly. This would allow government to focus on creating a framework that provides clarity for businesses going forward. I think businesses should put their case across more forcefully and confidently and make it clear that it is businesses who are best placed to decide what they develop for the future and how they do so – after all, they are the ones taking the risk. Technology neutrality should of course be a given in this context. Recent years have shown that it is not advisable to rely on a single technology.
I’m very passionate about these things. Everyone can hear and see how the ever greater number of regulations is burdening businesses. We can hear and see how much time it takes companies to comply with these regulations and how this is even causing some businesses to consider closing down. This isn’t what we want for businesses. I see two key issues here.
The first is that the regulations are getting more and more detailed, and this increases the workload for companies. The reason is that the regulators are trying to control everything more and more closely in order to prevent every possible danger. But we can never control everything, especially in technology areas that we don’t yet fully understand. We could start helping businesses by giving them a bit more room for maneuver and making it attractive for them to use regulatory sandboxes.
But instead of doing this, we’ve tied our businesses’ hands so tightly with regulations in areas like medical technology that companies in this field can no longer bring their innovations to market in Germany because they lack the resources. So the innovation happens in the US, China and other countries around the world.
A first step in the right direction would be for businesses and the EU authorities, for example the Commission, to meet and hear what the other side has to say. Medical Mountains created a good platform to enable mutual understanding between both sides. It allowed specific problems to be addressed and led to some initial ideas about how the regulations could be amended.
But the best solution is if research and business are involved right from the outset, when a regulation is being planned, so they can explicitly raise their own potential concerns. The European Commission welcomes this feedback. In addition to the “Have Your Say” portal, questions and concerns can be submitted at any time, especially during the first few months when the regulation is open to everyone for scrutiny.
These are very important opportunities that are currently being overlooked by employees and businesses. I understand why people are not satisfied at the moment, but ways of doing something about it do exist. As Commissioner for Europe, my door here is always open to help businesses discuss the key elements of regulations with the European institutions and resolve any potential concerns. We’ve already organized a brief exchange between small businesses and the Commission where the companies could explain their problems. This feedback helps the Commission to review the relevant regulations and make the appropriate amendments when they are updated.
How important is networking to you in this context?
As far as networking is concerned, I think that, in general, the best policy for every innovation and technology is to cooperate with partners such as researchers, start-ups etc, those that can bring additional knowledge to increase the innovation options. The easiest way to do this is through an EU project. Here at Steinbeis Europa Zentrum, we help people find the right partners. I’m always getting feedback from businesses who were skeptical to start with, but ended up being positively surprised by how much they learned. Not least because of the speed at which new technologies are emerging, it’s important to pool expertise and experience and cooperate, not just within Baden-Württemberg but also, where possible, with other European regions. The Enterprise Europe Network also provides a means of participating in the relevant platforms. It really is worth investing some time in this. But SMEs must of course be willing to free up some of their employees’ capacity for it – this type of cooperation isn’t something the boss can manage on their own. I think it’s important for companies to be better informed about the available services. In the field of digitalization, for example, Germany has its Digital Hubs and Europe has the European Digital Innovation Hubs. In Baden-Württemberg alone, there are three hubs that you can contact for support and knowledge about digitalization and AI in your business.
How can Steinbeis Europa Zentrum provide targeted support to businesses?
Support is available through the Enterprise Europe Network, which has several contact points in Baden-Württemberg, including Steinbeis Europa Zentrum. There are so many opportunities that businesses can and should take advantage of. Cooperating with others results in projects being implemented faster and above all better thanks to the different skills that partners bring to the table. At Steinbeis Europa Zentrum, we now have almost 100 members of staff out there working on a wide variety of topics, from technological questions to social innovations. We’re also very active in the Danube Region, where we’re supporting cities, municipalities and universities. We cover a wide range of technologies and offer SMEs in particular – but also businesses and research institutions in general – a fantastic opportunity to spread the risk by cooperating with others through EU projects. Depending on the project’s research stage, the funding available through EU projects can be anywhere from 70% to 100%. The project partners can get several million euros from the EU. The funding obviously includes the cost of the relevant measures, and it also covers personnel and travel costs.
Things get a bit trickier once a company reaches the end of the startup phase and wants to scale up. The sums involved in scaling up are of a different order of magnitude and this level of funding isn’t so readily available. There is the EU accelerator, but it receives so many applications that, unfortunately, only a very small proportion are approved. We do our best to help here, too, but entering technology partnerships with others as early as possible is even more important in this context. The partners can be small businesses or large enterprises that have never participated in an EU project before and just want to give it a go. We can often also help businesses to join existing consortia so there is less for them to organize themselves. And we obviously also help people who simply want to find a partner for a project in another country or continent. This is where the Enterprise Europe Network comes in again. In a nutshell, whatever your business-related question, we can provide the answer, and if we can’t, we know a professional partner who you can contact.
Despite their importance in today’s world, social innovations are treated differently to commercial enterprises when it comes to funding. Do you think this is right?
You’d be surprised at the number of business enterprises involved in social innovation. For instance, we’re working with an entrepreneur whose main focus is tackling plastic waste in the oceans. She operates as a nonprofit limited liability company (gGmbH) in order to share her many important patents quickly and unbureaucratically so they can be deployed as soon as possible all around the world. It is undoubtedly frustrating that, as a nonprofit limited liability company, she doesn’t have the same access to funding as an ordinary limited liability company (GmbH). Steinbeis Europa Zentrum is also part of a nonprofit limited liability company, and a lot of activities that benefit businesses are linked to this. I don’t think funding should differentiate between commercial and nonprofit enterprises. Rather than excluding nonprofit limited liability companies from potential funding, the focus should be on the issues addressed and the impact achieved.
Contact
Dr.-Ing. Petra Püchner (interviewee)
Steinbeis Entrepreneur
Steinbeis Europa Zentrum | Steinbeis EU for YOU (Stuttgart)
Steinbeis Entrepreneur
Steinbeis IDEA Europe / Institut der Europabeauftragten der Ministerin für Wirtschaft, Arbeit und Tourismus Baden-Württemberg (Stuttgart)