A crisis, whether economic or political, is not new for Europe. From world wars to the 2008 financial crisis and the eurozone crisis, Europe has survived everything that came on its way to progress. Recently, during the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, European leaders have shown remarkable resilience. However, there is a widely accepted belief that Europe needs to catch up with other major regions on key technologies. A report published by McKinsey & Company says that, despite having many high-performing companies, in aggregate European companies underperform relative to those in other major regions: they are growing more slowly, creating lower returns, and investing less in R&D than their US counterparts.
Did Europe really miss the boat on the last technology revolution? Are they lagging behind on value and growth in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and other disruptive innovations? While McKinsey says yes, Deloitte has a different take on it. A Deloitte survey on European companies and how
digital technologies can strategically enhance innovation found that Investments in data analytics and cloud computing are already well advanced among European companies. In this survey, Deloitte claims that innovation is a strategic priority for 88 per cent of 760 European companies in 16 European countries from 20 major business fields, and they want to increase budgets over the next few years.
We cannot cast Europe as an ageing competitor when the world is moving towards a digital future. In fact, as Deloitte says, Europe is still an innovation powerhouse. The World Economic Forum (WEF), for example, considers Germany the world’s most innovative economy and Switzerland the third. To understand more about the European business environment and its ability to innovate constantly, we have come up with this special issue featuring the ‘10 Most Innovative Companies in Europe – 2022.’
In this issue, we have identified companies that have developed innovation strategies, built innovation capabilities, designed and launched new products and stimulated innovation ecosystems. On the cover, we feature ACCA software that offers a range of over 90 products which have revolutionised the construction industry by increasing productivity in the practices of hundreds of thousands of engineers, architects, surveyors, construction and installation companies, engineering departments, schools and universities.
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