workshop1commercial essentials

Commercial Development Programme

Commercial Essentials

Workshop 1 – Thinking Commercially about Research

NORTHUMBRIA COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISES INNOVATION CAMPUS

Commercial Essentials Programme

The workshops programme has been designed to provide an overview of all areas of information that are vital when building a business plan. Topics covered include:

•Intellectual Property

•Market research

•Sales & Marketing

•Finance & Funding

•Business Planning


Commercial Essentials Programme

•Workshop 1: Thinking commercially about research - 18th November 2009

•Workshop 2: Planning Finance and Funding your Idea - 21st January 2010 (TBC). •Workshop 3: Protecting Your Idea - 10th February 2010

•Workshop 4: Developing Your Idea - 10th March 2010 (TBC)

•Workshop 5: Understanding, Finding and Developing Markets - 14th April 2010 (TBC)

•Workshop 6: Putting your Business Plan into Action - 5th May 2010


Ross Golightly


Claire RutherfordEuropean Patent Attorney


Matthew RipponConsultant


Stephen SlaterPartner


Ice Breaker

Graham Hopson – Commercialisation Manager


Northumbria Commercial Enterprises provides a variety of support packages through ‘Innovation Campus’ to enable

successful commercialisation of

research.


Innovation Seed Fund

This fund (now in its third year) enables staff ‘buy-out of time’ during Semester 2 (2010) to enable the commercial development of work-related ideas to develop. •Technologies•Software•Commercial Services

Details of past projects are listed here: 2008/2009 2007/2008 Further information about the fund including the application form can be found at: http://northumbria.ac.uk/business/nce/info4staff/ic/icinfo/isf10/?view=Standard Deadline for application submission 11th December 09.


Business Plan Challenge

Following from the success of previous years, the opportunity has again arisen to enable any member of the University staff to enter the Northumbria University Staff Business Plan Challenge 2010.

This is a “too good to be missed” opportunity to develop your “idea” into a viable business plan and you will receive substantial free professional support which will include:-

•Mentoring; •Working with experienced consultants; •Clinics with a team of external experts; •Regular workshops that provide practical and useful information;•And more


Active Business Incubator

Northumbria Commercial Enterprises has partnered with Commercial Catalyst to develop the Active Business Incubator (ABI). This is a model for improving the commercial viability of academic endeavour in Knowledge Transfer such as:

•Contract Research

•Collaborative Research

•Licensing

•Spin-out Company Formation

•Commercial Networks


Key activities include:

Match Making:

The ABI finds individuals in the business world to partner with academics at the earliest possible stage of research. These business people have strong operational selling and marketing skills. They are able to identify and engage potential buyers, ensuring that a market exists for individual ideas. They make sure ideas are honed to maximise success and financial returns.

Links with Regional, National and International Businesses:

The ABI operates a proactive database marketing operation, identifying established companies that are able to commercially exploit or directly use innovations. In addition to the usual sources of grant funding, this provides a stream of commercial R&D funding and a place for market testing and commercial exploitation of ideas.This marketing operation also provides business training and mentoring on a paid for basis generating margin to make the ABI self sustaining. It identifies Knowledge Transfer opportunities, creating consulting opportunities staff and employment of students and graduates.


Spin-out company development:

SpinIOs™ are a combination of a spin out and a spin in. There are academic/entrepreneur partnerships creating companies in which the University maintains an equity and operational stake.

SpinIOs have the full range of options for commercial exploitation. They can sell services on behalf of the University at commercial rates. They can create revenue streams through licensing and royalty deals. Ultimately they produce leveraged equity value through company exits, stock market listings and acquisitions. Formed at the very earliest stage in the development of ideas, they reduce wasted research effort, much of which fails to deliver commercial value.

Funding:

The ABI provides unbiased advice from experienced peopled throughout the lifecycle of a company. It can provide access to appropriate sources of funding.


Innovation was the core mission of his life and business. He developed and

commercialised practical innovations that addressed real needs.

• Define Clear Goals

• Be Persistent in Achieving Those Goals

• Refuse Conventional Wisdom

Thomas Edison

(The Inventor of Electricity, the Light Bulb and the Battery)


Commercialising Research: Critical Thinking

Some questions you can reflect on that a professional advisor might ask:

• Have you developed an underlying idea into a complete product, service or technology?

• Does your product/service or idea contain novel technologies?

• Does your product/service or idea reuse other ideas/technologies in a novel way?

• Does your idea present a major step change that is faster, cheaper or better?

• Do these novel ideas address pre-determined or uncovered needs?

• Will your idea provide meaningful value to its desired end user?

• Can you articulate that value in plain and simple English in a way that is compelling to others?


All Large Organisations Have Development and Screening Processes:

Development

Vision and Values

- Brand Promise

- Positioning

Consumer Needs

- Insight

- Decision Process

- Legislation

- Patents

- Safety

Product Strategy

Marketing Strategy

Business Strategy

Generation Plan

Generation Plan

Project Portfolio

Primary Development

Project Specification, Pre-Engineering and Industrialisation

Market

Market

Launch

Strategic Product Planning

Generation Planning

Execution & Feedback


Success Rate of New Product Ideas

Development5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

Num

ber

of S

urvi

ving

Ide

as

Cumulative time (percent)

Screening

Business analysisDevelopment

Testing

Commercialisation

One successfulnew product


Creating Commercial Appeal in the Eyes of a Third Party

• Your IP must be something that could be exploited to create an actual revenue stream

• This can be realised as an actual product/service or as a technology to improve existing products/services

• It should be strongly differentiated from existing ideas, IP or technology (therefore presenting a step change, rather than an incremental improvement)

• It should be commercial efficient to manufacture and have multiple application markets

• It should be aligned to real market needs (either untapped or pre-defined)

• It should be believable, relevant, different, surprising, inspiring and ownable


Being fast enough to be first into the market, with the rightright product, is

worth more to the prosperity of most businesses than probably any other

single management or manufacturing action.


Define Your Research from the Perspective of Needs:

A Market … £100m Value? (That’s Financial)

… France and Germany? (That’s Geography)

… High Street / On-Line? (That’s a Channel)

A Market People with a Common Need or Want

If You Start with a Definition of a Technology or Research Piece,

You will never Define a Need!


Development

“Blue Ocean Strategy”:

DON’T COMPETE!

Create Uncontested Market Space

Creating Temporary Monopolies is Exactly What Businesses Aspire to do!


Manufacturing Mindset

“Sell What We Make”

“Make What Will Sell”

How We Often

Function

How We Should

FunctionMarketing Mindset


Developing Commercial Awareness within Your Research: Key Rules

• Don’t gravitate towards the tried and trusted

• Think Business as Unusual ... Rather than Business as Usual

• See your idea through a customer or users eyes

• Break the Rules

• Don’t get too close – emotion can blind objective decision making

• Innovate – don't renovate!


Commercialisation Project Management Cycle

IP Exploitation

Concept Research Business

Plan

IP Protection

Funding Package

Product Dvpt

Commercial-isation

Working Capital

Strategy Dvpt

Market Research

Company Set Up

Idea Dvpt

Risk Management

Revenue Generation

Strategy


Current Application Example

Funding – Proving the Research


Commercialisation Project Management and Planning

• Outcome orientation: start with the end in mind

• Project forward and work back to identify key activities, interventions and costs

• Don’t move incrementally: identify your total project liability in terms of costs, resources and time required to achieve your desired outcome right at the start

• Then set about identifying the people, organisations and funders who can support that.

• Don’t work in a vacuum – obtain feedback into the process at every juncture and use your contact base or advisory team constantly to pool for feedback.

• Be obsessed with detail and know where you are going – funders hate woolly blue sky thinking.


Claire RutherfordEuropean Patent Attorney


The perfect idea!

Has a clear market need

Can be made at a market acceptable price

Can be made in a format acceptable to the market

Can be ring-fenced to prevent competitors encroaching on your market

So, how do you begin to work out whether your invention is anywhere near perfect?


A good place to start

Is the idea new? Starting the search

General Internet Searching

Patent recordsgb.espacenet.com

www.delphion.com

Scientific/Industry literature


Can you protect the idea in some way?

Patents

Designs

Trade Marks TM ®

Copyright

Know How

New and protectable – you can start considering other issues such as cost, manufacturing requirements etc.

Unprotectable but strong market need – only have a short period before your competitors follow (might be enough to build a brand!)

A new idea but no clear market – it’s expensive to create a market


The other side of the coin

freedom to operate

Can also use patent searching to:

identify acquisition targets

identify cross-licensing targets

identify competitive threats

identify gaps in the market/technology


Matthew RipponConsultant


Commercialising IP – The Entrepreneur’s Secret Recipe

• The Mechanics - assignments and licences• In Practice - distribution, franchising and all sorts• Risk -v- Reward


Stephen SlaterPartner

Stages of a business

Business Plan



Gartner’s Hype Cycle


Product Life Cycle


Get Connected - Get

With more and more people using social networking websites it makes sense to do the same for business networking. That is why the idea of Northumbria Knowledge Exchange has come about – it is a way for innovators, companies, business support organisations and funders related to Northumbria University to connect to each other and help turn knowledge into business.

If you would like to be LinkedIn to Northumbria Knowledge Exchange, go to:

http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/1849144/


Thank You!!!

Any further questions or feedback?