[ Benefits of innovations ]
Innovations create growth and jobs.
Whether it is a question of cars, computers, dishwashers or machine tools: no new product hoping to be successful on the market can manage without technical and design innovations. The customer expects them – and engineers, designers, scientists and entrepreneurs join forces to satisfy their wishes. Especially in Germany, with its dearth of raw materials, innovations are of crucial importance as a stimulus for urgently needed growth and success on the labour markets.
What matters is future-proof products and services which are characterised by advanced technology and well-qualified know-how. This means more than just developing completely new products. Indeed, apparently “mature” products also need constant further development.
Even today, “Made in Germany” is still regarded as a sign of excellence in technically sophisticated goods of the highest quality – when we make an international comparison, Germany has some catching up to do as an industrial location. If the country wants to remain a top global player technologically, it is important to enhance our innovative strength. The way to respond to the competition from low-wage countries is to launch an innovation campaign – and reliably to secure the substantial investments in research and development by means of industrial property rights (patents, trade marks, designs).