One-time Dragon and Chairman of research group Library House, Doug Richard rails this month in his regular column for the UK entrepreneurial magazine Growing Business against the conservative approach of many European corporations when it comes to buying technology from home-grown SMBs.

While this might strike some as a little ironic given Doug’s legendary aversion to putting his hand in his pocket for any of the SMBs pitching to him in the Den, the article draws some interesting parallels between US economic success and the willingness of that country’s major businesses to invest in innovative technology.

Citing research by the American economist William Nordhaus, “who quantified that from 1948 to 2000 just 3% of the economic returns generated by technological advances were captured by the producers of innovations and 97% by the consumers”, Doug argues that a culture of embracing innovation – in contract to European conservatism – has made a significant contribution to America’s consistent lead over Europe in overall economic well-being.

In our experience of a young, innovative on-demand European eProcurement sector it is hard to disagree. One of the biggest frustrations we face is sorting the heroic wheat from the window-shopping chaff.

And in all cases we’ve helped them deliver very visible successes, generating often huge process and financial savings.

But even with half a decade of evidence behind us, we still find ourselves all too often up against business cultures that punish innovation, focus on risk over reward, and encourage employees to do little more than maintain the status quo.

It would be nice to think that in years to come more European corporates might take a lead from their American counterparts in this respect, building businesses with an embedded culture of innovation rather than relying on exceptional individuals to do battle with conservatism and inertia.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to search out purchasing’s white knights.