INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY AS A PREREQUISITE TO SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

Innovation and creativity represents the key assumption when creating competitive advantage for any of the market participant. It is quite sure that without creativity and innovative products and services that already exist or are about to appear at the market, it’s not possible to achieve a long-term competitive advantage. The turbulent market and the increasingly demanding consumers who have become picky in the mass of products and services that do meet the same need, presently the added value and unique characteristics of the products and services have become crucial when choosing a product. The purpose of the paper is to highlight the importance of introducing competitive characteristics to products and services as well as introducing innovations to Croatian companies. The aim of this paper is to indicate that there is a room for improvement when it comes to competitiveness and innovation in the Republic of Croatia, as well as for the future predictions within this area. The research methodology is based on the application of analysis and synthesis methods, and methods of comparison and descriptive methods.