| ANNEX
C: A COMMERCIAL APPROACH |
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| Booz Allen
(an international management and technology consulting
firm which has assisted state and regional governments
from Singapore to Silicon Valley in providing the impetus
for knowledge-driven economies and promoting enterprise)
assisted the taskforce. They provided an international
perspective on the issues facing Scotland, backed up by
numerous case studies, examples of best practice and
distilled 'lessons learned'. From these examples, several
consistent themes emerged. They characterised them as a
'commercial approach to commercialisation'. This approach
takes the perspective of the private sector - the
ultimate customer of commercialised university research -
and focused on demand-side 'pull' as well as technology
'push'. That approach is set out in the box below. |
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| A Commercial
Approach to Commercialisation |
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| Five lessons
learned from international experience: |
| |
| 1) Pick the
target market carefully, and focus on the question of
'what's in it for them' |
2) Create
'Pull': recognise that the private sector is much more
likely to be engaged if the odds or incentives are
changed in their favour. Government can play an effective
role here.
- Many countries
experience a funding gap at the
'proof-of-concept' stage because it is simply not
economically viable for the private sector to
play in this field
- for a venture
capitalist, small deals cost the same as
large deals; the risk, return, cost equation
does not stack up.
- industry may not
have the skills, or see the benefit in
collaboration unless directly relevant to
their business
- There is a role for
government in addressing this 'market failure' by
improving the incentives for private sector to
act
|
3) Tackle
commercialisation in a commercial way
- Define the scope and
the aims clearly and early on
- a sector/cluster
focused or broad-based approach?
- world class
cluster development or regional development?
- Provide a clear
commercial means for the private sector to get
involved
- sponsorship?
- shareholding?
- co-investing,
deal by deal?
- Supported by
professional business plans, management, or even
legal entities
- place execution
responsibility with full time professionals from
business backgrounds
- market the package
aggressively, and establish an efficient two-way
communication process
|
| 4) Appoint a
respected high profile leader from the business community |
| 5) Pursue
one or more 'flagship' initiative to create momentum, and
provide a point of focus.
|
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