Inovação e empreendedorismo na construção civil: uma análise do ecossistema de inovação da construção civil cearense

Abstract

Many economic sectors have invested in innovation to fix the current challenges of its business. One of the ways to do it is the creation of Startups. This can be observed in construction sector, where startups are called of Construtechs and Proptechs. Thus, this work aimed to analyze the innovation ecosystem of startups in civil construction in the state of Ceará, Brazil. For that, qualitative research was carried out. Initially, from public fomentation notice to promote innovation in the state of Ceará, the actors were identified. That is, the ecosystem was mapped, which was composed of 22 sponsors, 8 development institutions, 3 accelerators, 2 Innovation Hubs, 4 promoters, 2 educational institutions and 2 partners. With this, the network was plotted with the actors what enabled to visualize the main relationships between these actors. It can be highlight the role of the Government of the State of Ceará, through Programa Corredores Digitais Programa Clusters Econômicos de Inovação (public fomentation programs). With startups mapped, an online survey was carried out led to deepen the analysis and understand in depth the problems and solutions addressed by startups. In this specific one, the scope of the problems that involve the entire production chain can be highlighted. The most recurrent solutions were digital marketplace following by management platform. It was also possible to classify startups according to the life cycle of the building. The design & feasibility phase and the construction phase were found to have the highest number of active startups. Then, the main technologies applied by construction startups in Ceará were described, with mobile computing, cloud computing, design, automation and big data being the most recurrent technologies. Finally, an analysis of business maturity (based on the CERNE model) and technological maturity (based on the TRL scale) was carried out, in which two groups of startups, early startups and advanced startups, can be seen. It could be seen that about 50% of startups operating in the sector are still in initial processes, and its solutions have not yet been launched on the market. It can be concluded that despite the sector being considered traditional and low technological intensity, it is seen that there is already an active ecosystem and that it has provided the emergence of new ideas that can be absorbed by companies and become innovations. This transformation has been strongly driven by the State Government, demonstrating its relevance for the promotion of a creative and technological economy. Future works were suggested.