32% of the members of COTEC Portugal have joined the country’s main business association in the last six years. For the CEO, Jorge Portugal, it is a finding that translates into “a good time for intervention” and business renewal. In other words, it’s the ideal time to launch the theme of the industry’s return to the spotlight.

The head of COTEC spoke about it in the last edition of this season of the podcast “O Regresso da Indústria”, hosted by journalist Paulo Ferreira. After all, it is an essential activity for progress and necessary to combat “what has sometimes been called the effects of the deindustrialization of Europe”. It is necessary to reverse the process of decline in manufacturing because the industry is increasingly “an engine of innovation, an engine of economic productivity growth, an engine of employment.” And it is an engine that all the blocks – Europe and all its competitors – seek to strengthen to ensure “not only competitiveness, but also the increase in wages and the quality of life of their populations”.

“The last two years have been especially significant from the point of view of the manifestation of the risks of dependence on other factories,” said Jorge Portugal, adding that it has become crucial not to become so dependent on supply chains. distribution as it has been. been the case so far. “This return of the industry is absolutely critical for a resilient economy, a more productive economy and, with it, an economy with greater strategic autonomy,” he concluded.

Recently, COTEC Portugal, which since 2003 has included companies from various sectors of activity, conducted a survey among its members to find out why they joined the association. Four responses were highlighted that, according to the official, clearly define the importance of innovation and collaboration to encourage and strengthen the industry. The first response was “to be aware of innovation in the industry in Portugal and in the world”. The associated companies consider this innovation “a center of knowledge” and have the notion that Portugal is an integrated space in the world. “It has a lot to do with what has been the opening of the industry and the Portuguese economy to the world”, said the CEO, explaining that the companies associate COTEC with the international dynamics of the industry. “A week ago we had COTEC Europe, which is exactly one of the manifestations of this international dimension of COTEC”.

The second answer clearly referred to the issue of innovation. “Based on this idea of ​​bringing digital transformation as a fundamental element of productivity gains and innovation.

In third place came the answer that the CEO points out as the most obvious reason: ”To have contact with other organizations and exchange experiences. Many times innovation is not in the activity sector of the company, it is in another sector and it has to be brought in”, he added. In other words, if there is a problem already solved that is similar to a problem that a specific company in its sector has, COTEC helps to bring this information to any area of ​​the industry that also needs this solution.

The last answer had to do with the availability of management tools. “It is not just about talking about knowledge, but about applying that knowledge in practice in terms of management and innovation processes”, explains Jorge Portugal, adding that “the value of knowledge is the value of its application and its transformation into commercial value”. Innovation is a business process, it is a management competence. COTEC develops tools and makes available and creates the conditions for the practical application of these management and innovation processes in a structured way, which facilitates the adoption of these tools by companies and shortens the cycle of implementation and achievement of results.

It is not enough to have companies that invest in knowledge, research and development. These are qualities that are within the domain of the invention. Innovation is something different: “It is the practical application of this knowledge, of these new solutions that are valued by the market”. There are still many companies that continue to navigate and navigate, in a painful way, “in the sense of crossing the valley of death”, that path that must be traveled between a technological solution and a product or process that has market value, that is accepted and that allows the company to conquer a price and a space of land that it did not have before. Jorge Portugal stressed that it is necessary to “industrialize the product on an economically viable scale and be able to sell it at a price and with the attributes that the market really values.” Without it, there is no successful innovation, only attempts.

“The fear of unemployment and of people being replaced by machines”

Jorge Portugal identified accelerating digitization as the most important goal at the moment. “It has to happen faster. Portugal is evolving positively, but to converge, we have to move faster. And it is this acceleration that entrepreneurs intuit is necessary and that is materializing, ”he said. Companies are now realizing where they need to go digital; in some cases, it is on the shop floor, where there are gains in efficiency and cycle speed or quality, in others, it is in the process of digital design and product simulation, along with creation. with customers, or, in relation to distribution and proximity, “even because many companies today have already decided to create parallel channels to distribute and reach customers directly”.

In this context of digital transformation and automation, the employment relationship is also evolving. The way for companies to have more competitive costs could even be by replacing people with machines, but in practice this is not what is happening. “There is a change in the roles of the same people, who start doing more creative tasks with more added value.”

The member companies of COTEC believe that there will not be a deep unemployment crisis through automation and that this transition —between a more intelligent economy, where part of the physical and cognitive functions will be replaced by algorithms, machines or robots—, will not bring more unemployment. .

What history has taught is that the introduction of new technological vacancies has always been accompanied by an improvement in working conditions, in the attractiveness of the position and in the remuneration of workers. “The big problem here, it’s always with everything, it’s with the transitions.” In transitions, we always witness a certain instability in societies until they adapt to new work environments. Jorge Portugal calls for a lot of recycling and redefinition of workers so that the adaptation process is less disruptive. Both companies and the State are responsible and inescapable in bringing this challenge to fruition. “So as people’s roles are being replaced by machines, people are being retrained.”

Right now, what is happening in the business fabric is that machines, robots and algorithms help and support the work that workers do. And there is also a second line of functions in which it is absolutely essential that a human being is performing because the problems are more complex and it is necessary to resort to critical thinking and the ability to resolve and intervene. “What was the figure of Charlie Chaplin in modern times, of a worker who performed standardized tasks, without critical thinking, without intervention, without autonomy, no longer exists. He has to give way to a worker with autonomy, with critical thinking, with knowledge, precisely to be able to complement what the machine cannot do”.

“All companies can be leaders in innovation, none can be a leader alone”

One of the highlights of this season of “The Return of the Industry” was the enormous need for collaboration between entities. Several specific cases of collaborative innovation between companies, between research units, between universities that develop solutions in collaboration with companies, at their request or proactively, to solve the problems that arise have passed through the program.

“It is one of the central functions of COTEC because, in practice, we continue working to solve a historical issue: collaboration”. In fact, companies are not born to collaborate, they are born to compete. It is still believed that secrecy is the soul of business and that the nature of a company is to distrust others. But, how will COTEC be able to change this very old paradigm? The CEO assured that it is essential to get companies to share. “This podcast and the cases that we brought are cases of ecosystem innovation, therefore, in collaboration, open innovation in which companies open their doors.” There was an exchange of secrets, knowledge and resources in terms of talent and skills needed. It was perceived that, today, it is only possible to solve problems and take advantage of opportunities, “through a collaborative approach, an open ecosystem approach”.

But this participation also has its peculiarities: “it requires that companies know how to work with external entities, know how to work internally, know how to work with entities of a very different nature, such as academic entities that have different operating cycles and purposes.” Companies are now required to learn this new organizational skill that is collaboration. Basically, it’s getting everyone to talk to everyone. “But speak with purpose, with structure and with method.”

Regresso da Indústria is a series of programs resulting from a partnership between Rádio Observador and COTEC Portugal – Business Association for Innovation, in a project co-financed by COMPETE 2020, Portugal 2020 and the European Union, through the European Regional Development Fund. Each episode is broadcast every 15 days, on Wednesdays, on Rádio Observador (on frequencies 93.7 and 98.7 in Lisbon, 98.4 in Porto and 88.1 in Aveiro) and can then be heard as a podcast. Also on Wednesdays, an article with the main contents of the previous week’s program is published fortnightly in the Observer.