The-Gatherer-Volume-7

WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY

ALBERT FERRALORO Principal, Wrays Intellectual Property Specialist

THREE STEPS TO GROWING YOUR IDEAS

IMPORTANT OPERATIONAL AND BUSINESS QUESTIONS –– Do you have the right leadership team to successfully take the business forward? –– How will you source and secure funding to support growth plans? –– Will you attract the right people to join the team when scaling the business, both in terms of technical ability and cultural fit? –– How will you handle business development and marketing? –– Do you have the right plans in place to build strategic relationships with partners, suppliers and distributors? –– What are you doing to recognise and manage IP issues and safeguard the organisation’s valuable IP assets? KEY IP CONSIDERATIONS IP often represents the greatest proportion of an organisation’s asset value. The adoption of some simple IP management principles and practices can help businesses ensure they are well positioned to make the most of their creative endeavours. –– Consider protection options at the right time. If this is done in the wrong order, opportunities to secure exclusive rights can be compromised or lost. –– Ensure your IP assets are understood, suitably safeguarded and managed so you can identify and capture new innovations as they are developed. –– Consider how IP rights can be used to support the commercial aims of the business. For example: –– Keep competitors at bay –– Attract business and potential collaborative partners –– Support capital raising activities –– Licensing and royalty-based income. –– The ability to protect your own innovations and solutions does not guarantee your ability to market or use your products. Get advice to understand what third party IP rights exist and what restrictions or roadblocks they may place on your own technical and commercial activities.

“Being apathetic towards IP can result in business and revenue opportunities not being realised, and organisations being exposed to commercial risks and challenges which could have been avoided.”

A roadmap enables you to see what is ahead and develop an understanding of the validation metrics that can be tested along the path. Your roadmap should identify: –– key phases of the commercialisation process –– business model –– funding sources –– what expertise you will need, such as IP advisors, commercial lawyers, market research, branding, technology developers, industrial designers –– an anticipated budget of expenditure –– the timeline By developing this roadmap, you can then develop a total business case that identifies the size and value of the potential market v the anticipated costs and build a cost v benefit risk analysis to make informed business decisions. DEVELOP THE COMMERCIALISATION ROADMAP

BE AGILE IN YOUR THINKING

THINK GLOBALLY

What you ‘think’ your innovative idea will look like is usually not quite what the market will need, want and value. Enter the project with a ‘learning’ mindset. Your project success is based on the level of penetration you make in either an existing market (a sustaining innovation that improves a current product) or creates an entirely new market (disruptive innovation). Learning as you proceed through the commercialisation process is the single greatest metric you can have. Ensuring agile development processes are embedded in your methodology will not only assist in building what customers will value, but also save you both resources and wastage.

While your initial innovative thought may be solving a problem or doing a job that you identify through your own market contact, understand that intellectual property is transferrable globally. You do not need to be a multinational to become a global distributor, therefore enter your commercialisation project thinking about ALL the markets it can touch.

LINDA GINGER Board member Growth Science & Non-Executive Director of UniQuest Marketing Strategist

“The risk not to innovate is potentially far greater. Given the pace of change there is far greater risk your current business will not survive.”

TREVOR HOLMES Managing Director, Advivo Innovation Commercialisation Partners Commercialisation Specialist

“Validate your market opportunity before going all in. High fail rates can be reduced by better understanding your market.”

For more information please contact:

ALBERT FERRALORO Principal

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