Organisations that are successful at innovation have to be good at more than simply coming up with conceptual breakthroughs, according to Goffin, a professor of innovation and new product development at the Cranfield School of Management.

"It's like a pentathalon. You have to be good not at just one event but all five."

Goffin, who spoke at an Enterprise Ireland forum at Dublin Castle last week, said that organisations needed to foster a culture of innovation, which meant accepting the inevitable failures that are part of the process and involving staff at all levels.

The key elements to innovations that wind up being successful are that they are connected with hidden customer needs and are linked to a hard-to copy business process that will allow the innovator to hold onto their advantage for longer. But not every organisation need look inside for the best route to innovation.

In the present networked world, it was important for companies to innovate in areas that they're already good at, according to Dr Nabil Sakkab.

Sakkab, a senior vice president with US consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, said that his company had shed its research efforts in favour of "in-sourcing" critical components of innovation, licensing and marketing products instead of developing them inhouse.

In keeping with the in-sourcing model, Enterprise Ireland also launched a website designed to help its clients locate bits of technology available for license from large corporates, universities and small firms from around the world, called www. techsearch. com.

It said it would help Irish companies get matched up with hard-to-find technologies.