How industrial SMEs can stay competitive through practical innovation

Three Jura industry leaders share their advice on how manufacturing-focused SMEs can strengthen operations, diversify intelligently and prepare for what comes next.

At the first InnoJura Academy workshop on innovation management at Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area – Jura, Henri Cortat of Hevron SA, Benoit Chételat of Berotec SA, and Maxime Auchlin of Auchlin SA offered three complementary perspectives on a question many SME leaders are facing: how do you keep evolving without losing the capabilities that made your business valuable in the first place? Their presentations pointed toward a version of innovation that feels pragmatic, demanding and highly relevant for industrial and manufacturing SMEs.

One of the clearest lessons from the workshop was that innovation does not have to begin with a dramatic shift in direction. For many SMEs, the more useful starting point is a close look at the know-how already inside the business.

That point came through strongly from Maxime Auchlin’s perspective. He arrived at a company shaped by long-standing specialist polishing expertise with a scientific background and ideas for innovation, then quickly saw that deep practical know-how remained central to the business. The real opportunity lay in building on that expertise, extending it and applying it in new ways.

For SME leaders, that is a useful discipline. Before looking outward to the next trend, it is worth asking what the business already does exceptionally well and where that capability could create value in new contexts.

Henri Cortat’s presentation offered a second important point. Innovation often comes less from inventing something entirely new than from taking a proven method and adapting it intelligently to a different industrial reality.

That is exactly how he described the introduction of lean manufacturing into Hevron SA’s production environment. The concept already existed. The challenge lay in translating it into a setting with different products, different constraints and different habits. The result was measurable operational improvement rather than change for its own sake.

This is practical advice many SME leaders can use. New methods create value when they are adapted to the business rather than copied mechanically from another sector.

The workshop also made clear that future readiness was not just a question of ideas or market positioning. It showed up in operations.

Henri Cortat illustrated this in concrete terms. Process redesign, stronger quality control, improved predictability and digitalization all made the business more efficient and easier to manage under pressure. Innovation became real when it shortened lead times, reduced errors and created more control over what the company could deliver and when.

That matters for manufacturers because many competitive pressures now play out operationally. Customers expect more speed. Complexity rises. Recruitment remains difficult. Margins leave less room for waste. In that environment, process improvement is one of the most practical forms of innovation available.

Benoit Chételat brought another dimension to the discussion: resilience.

His perspective is especially relevant for smaller industrial companies navigating market volatility, sector cycles and pricing pressure. Diversification, in his view, is often necessary. It could open new revenue streams and reduce dependence on a single market. At the same time, he was clear that it comes with real costs – in tooling, people, complexity and margin.

That is an important nuance for SME leaders. Diversification is not automatically strategic. It becomes strategic when the company is disciplined about where it enters, what capabilities it can realistically support and what level of complexity it can absorb.

Across all three presentations, one message sat just beneath the technical and strategic detail: innovation only works if people can carry it.

Henri Cortat speaks openly about resistance to change and the need to communicate. Benoit Chételat underlines the importance of having people around you who can absorb constant shifts and new demands. Maxime Auchlin emphasizes the value of experienced employees whose know-how had been built over many years.

That is a useful reminder for SME leaders. A company’s ability to adapt depends not just on technology or investment, but on whether people understand the change, trust the direction and can make the new system work consistently.

Maxime Auchlin offers one of the clearest arguments in favor of industry-academic collaboration. His point is less about academic credentials themselves and more about what partnerships with universities, applied schools and research networks can make possible for smaller industrial businesses.

For SMEs, building a broad in-house technical or R&D function is often unrealistic. Specialist knowledge is expensive, resources are limited, and the next challenge may sit outside the company’s current expertise. In that context, external collaboration can become a practical route to innovation and competitiveness rather than a nice-to-have.

Auchlin makes the case plainly. Universities and applied schools give companies access to expert knowledge, technical development capacity and new ways of solving problems. In his own example, collaboration opens the door to a consortium project on new polishing techniques that would be far beyond the reach of a small company acting alone. By contributing at a level the business can sustain, the company gains access to a much larger pool of capabilities, partners and learning.

For SME leaders, that is an important reminder. You do not need to build every capability yourself to stay competitive. Often, the smarter move is knowing where external expertise can help you move faster, reduce risk and develop in directions that would otherwise remain out of reach.

One of the most human and useful parts of Benoit Chételat’s contribution was his reflection on fear and responsibility. For effective business leaders, caution is part of carrying responsibility well, rather than a weakness. The risk comes when caution hardens into paralysis.

SMEs do not need reckless experimentation. They need thoughtful leaders who can assess risk clearly, move deliberately and still act before conditions force their hand.

Taken together, these three perspectives point toward a more useful way to think about innovation in industrial SMEs.

Innovation is about building on top of real know-how, adapting proven methods, improving operations, choosing growth paths carefully, involving people properly, and drawing on external expertise when needed. Above all, it is about creating a business that can keep evolving without losing the quality, discipline and practical strengths that customers depend on.

For manufacturing leaders, that may be the most relevant message of all.

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