INTERVIEW
As Jesús Iriondo is both IK4-TEKNIKER’s Chairman and one of its clients through the company Maser-mic which he runs, he is a particularly well-qualified person to evaluate the step forward taken by the Eibar-based R+D centre as a result of its move to new facilities.
1.- From the point of view of Basque companies, how do you rate IK4-TEKNIKER’s new facilities and the new equipment that the R+D centre has provided itself with?
The R+D Centre-Company is a relational binomial that expresses the correlation of forces among the strategic players in this society, players with an extremely high potential for generating efficient synergies. If we want to achieve this to the full, as companies we need to provide ourselves with the most advanced technical means, and the professionals working in them need to be trained and qualified to tackle the most demanding challenges. What this boils down to is the desire that R+D Centres should be on a par with their international counterparts. Seeing how IK4-TEKNIKER is providing itself with new, modern facilities with advanced equipment instils confidence in us, and this in turn has to be translated into an intensification of the technological relationship.
2.- The added value that IK4-TEKNIKER and other R+D centres bring to the products of Basque companies helps our companies to compete on international markets. How is this investment in new facilities going to contribute towards improving the competitiveness of the Basque business base?
As companies we have to be present on a very competitive global market, in which frontiers are fading and new companies and forms of management and presence are bursting onto the scene. The challenge we face is to be innovative in the sphere of business strategy, in the offer of products and services and in the management of technology watch processes. But all that as a core activity in our business action.
Today, beyond the reiteration in the size of companies and organisations, speed is of the utmost importance. The fast fish will gobble up the slow one. So we need to have a good technological bandwidth that will enable us to get out onto the market quickly and competitively, even with the aspiration of being a benchmark in certain technological and business capabilities. The considerable investment made by IK4-TEKNIKER and the extraordinary and generous effort of its professionals contribute significantly towards expanding the technological bandwidth of the business base.
3.- What aspects in IK4-TEKNIKER’s R+D offer do you think are going to be particularly reinforced by the new facilities?
All IK4-TEKNIKER’s departments will find themselves reinforced, the conception of new facilities will provide for better departmental interaction and operational logistics, which will undoubtedly benefit IK4-TEKNIKER’s competitive efficiency. IK4-TEKNIKER’s excellent team of professionals will be able to deploy its whole scientific and technological potential more effectively and to adapt it to market demands without the limitations of the past, so an improvement in the service to companies will be possible.
4.- Basque companies are realising that they must get more directly involved in investment in R+D to maintain their competitiveness. How are IK4-TEKNIKER’s new facilities going to help towards bringing technological innovation to companies?
When you travel around the world and see the dynamism and evolution of other regions, even though it may be obvious, you become more aware of how important a competitive offer is in the economic aspect, advanced in technological terms and effective in management. This management model is not improvised from one day to the next, nor is it advisable to undertake it as a one-off activity. A timeline needs to be drawn up and put into effect, and one of the fundamental premises is that it should be a project that is sustainable in time, as the results will not be achieved in the short term. R+D centres, and as far as I know, IK4-TEKNIKER, are doing intense, committed work with companies to facilitate that channel of collaboration that is structured and sustainable in the medium/long term.
5.-You have deep knowledge about the business base in the Basque Autonomous Community (region) and in the Lower Deba area, in particular. How do the companies in this area see the fact that they have in their own area cutting-edge facilities like those of IK4-TEKNIKER, which are also part of the Basque Network of Technology Parks?
Beyond the personal satisfaction that we may feel knowing that in our area we have an internationally leading R+D centre in science and technology activities, these new facilities of IK4-TEKNIKER are filling us with anticipation and confidence, insofar as they are a reinforcement of the activity in the area and enable an area that is technologically highly competent to be developed. It means providing a showcase for international companies and investors, monitoring the dynamism of the area and the excellent industrial base that exists. And all this must benefit fresh commercial and business opportunities that can drive forward the development of our area and enable employment and social wealth to be created.
