Creativity and innovation in the ceramic tile industry. Case study: Struker Porcelanico S.L.

Abstract

The world we live in today is a globalized world, where events are happening faster and faster, businesses are increasingly competitive, and customers are much more specialized and expect a high performance of the product they purchase. All these aspects together make it necessary for companies to differentiate themselves from their competitors, and one of the ways they can choose to create this competitive advantage is by using innovative tools. It is currently very difficult for a company to survive in such a competitive environment without differentiating itself from its most direct competitors. These advantages we are talking about are necessary even in the most mature sectors, such as the one we will analyse in this paper, the ceramic sector. In this project we will try to understand the importance of concepts such as change, creativity and innovation, and the relationship between these three, understanding them as parts of a process, discussing the importance they can bring to a company in such a competitive sector as the ceramic industry. We will analyze the industry and the weight that the Cluster of Castellón has on it, developing here 95% of the national activities of this sector. In order to try to know, in a more practical way, the implantation of the innovations in companies of the sector, we will study a practical case of how a small company integrated in the Cluster of Castellón tries to differ from the competition by means of the adoption of one of the last technical applications of the sector. Specifically, we talk about the company Struker, a small company but with a high desire to innovate, giving an example of how it is possible for a small company to survive against large existing firms in the sector, thanks to innovation. The implementation of LaserJet technology in the company and its development will help us to understand the importance of innovations in quality and design, and why the Spanish ceramic industry has been a world leader in these aspects for several years, differentiating itself from other world powers and becoming one of the world powers in the ceramic sector