The importance of innovations for Czech business companies in relation to the globalization of markets

Abstract

For European companies, as well as for companies from other developed countries, it is difficult to compete with low cost production from developing countries. One of their best competitive advantages in this fight can be innovations. Of course, due to the open nature of Czech economy, this is true for Czech business companies as well. Nowadays markets are changing as well as they ever did but today they are changing much more quickly than ever before. For companies it is necessary to stay flexible. Markets are more globalized but also more fragmented, life cycle of products shortens and quick copying of products is very common. A permanent flow of new and innovative ideas can still give a company a crucial competitive advantage. The main aim of this paper is to refer about quantitative questionnaire research among Czech business companies from spring 2012. This research focuses on the importance that Czech companies assign to innovations in relation to globalization of market in which they occur. It tries to find an answer to the question if Czech business companies assign more importance to innovations than companies in more local or more global markets. Within this research framework, this paper tries to describe some of the most significant current market changes.