Lluís Chico focused his talk in the ASCAMM Forum, which took place on November 10^th, on the massive added value that innovation has brought to NEOS Surgery since its foundation in 2003. He explained the three key elements that NEOS always bears in mind when developing new products: establishing a clear goal, defining its distinguishing factors and, finally, working persistently to accomplish the initial goal.

“Although we properly followed the path laid by these three principles, in my position as NEOS’ General Manager, I have been through some failures”, Mr. Chico explained. Indeed, NEOS’ first developments failed to gain a foothold in a market dominated by a few large players. Despite this, NEOS’ history is a good example to illustrate the importance of innovation in generating added value for any company. These failures always taught something to NEOS Surgery.

Once the goal of creating a new cranial fixation was set, it was essential to decide what would make it different from the competitors: it had to be easy to use and require no extra instrumental to implant it. With this in mind, “the faith placed in a good idea and the constant work to achieve it” finally brought to Cranial LOOP.

The talk ended with a definition of what the industry of value is, based on NEOS’ experience: it is an industry that sells its products throughout the world, which helps build a high-quality industrial network and which generates new decision-making centers in its territory. In Mr. Chico’s words, “the industry of value creates future, prosperity and welfare”.

The ASCAMM Forum is a one-day yearly conference aimed at debating the different aspects of innovation that affect the competitiveness of enterprises. In this year’s edition, which was attended by over 200 people, the organizers pointed out that Catalonia needs to triple the public investment in industrial applied research. According to them, an annual asset around € 80 million would increase the private investment by 60 million and generate 2,000 direct work posts.

You will find complete information about the ASCAMM Forum on its website (in Spanish). It is organized by Fundació ASCAMM with the support of ESADE Business School, "la Caixa" Foundation, the Catalan Government agency ACC1Ó and the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).