Rio de Janeiro – Among extractive and manufacturing industries in Brazil, of the 9,400 companies with over 100 workers, 70.5% innovated last year. The information is in the 2021 Half-yearly Innovation Survey (PINTEC): Basic Indicators by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Innovation is considered to be the introduction of some new or substantially improved product or the incorporation of a new or improved business process for one or more business functions.
Data were released this Thursday (15), and the survey was carried out in partnership with the Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development (ABDI) and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). This is the first edition of the survey, whose objective is to produce a new generation of indicators on innovation in Brazil’s extractive and transformation industrial sector.
“It is a high rate; 70% of companies carried out some innovation in a pandemic scenario. In some way, companies are responding to this adverse scenario that did not just start with the pandemic. Businesses have responded to crises. And at first glance, it seemed like a favorable scenario,” said the manager of thematic research at the IBGE, Flávio Peixoto.
According to the study, most companies (37.8%) innovated both in product and in business process, followed by those that innovated only in business (20%) and only in the product (12.7%). Among the most innovative sectors, the highlights were chemicals (87%), computer equipment, electronics, and optical supplies(86.5%), and motor vehicles, trailers, and bodies (84.7%).
Despite having managed to introduce a new or improved product to the market or incorporate an innovative business process, 59.1% of innovative companies faced some challenges in the past year. Economic factors were identified as an obstacle for over half of the innovative companies: Economic instability (57.1%), increased competition (53%), and limited capacity of internal resources (50.5%).
Translated by Elúsio Brasileiro
