Needs of Global Start-up companies (Deliverable 2) GlobalStart wp1 Studies Deliverable 2 Needs of Global Start-up Companies Table of contents p
(c) The Internationalisation Process
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- 2. The UNIVERSITY – support for Globalstart companies 3. The REGIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE – support for Globalstart companies
- Description of the support needed Organisation/ Programme
- Production / operations
- Sales / market development
- Organisation governance
- 1. Description of the support needed
- 2. Organisation / programme
- 4. Evaluation of the support received
- Annex 3: Case Studies e-Trium Universal Information Robot (UIR)
- 1 (a) Profile and background
- Pre-venture End 1997 – End 2001 Foundation Early 2002 – Mid 2004
- Tech- nology platform Product Market
- Platform
- Finance just FFF
- 1 (c) The internationalisation process
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1 (c) The Internationalisation Process In this section on the background to the company, all the topics with an international dimension are explored in more detail. Ask the company to explain the international dimension of the following:
Ask the company the following ‘general questions’, before focussing on the specific areas of university and regional support in Sections 2 and 3. (a) What are / were the problems encountered by the spin-off during its internationalisation process? Describe (b) Did the spin-off need external support to solve those problems? Describe (c) If external support was needed, which partners (tools) provided them with the required support (university / TTO / venture capitalists / business angel / business or technology consultant / regional development agency / Board of Directors / Advisory Board / Internet/…) List and then follow up on university/regional factors in section 2 and 3. (d) If no external support was needed, which internal resources were available to solve the problem or did the problem remained unsolved? (e) Descibe the problems encountered by the management in translating the firm’s objectives into outcomes such as sales to global markets, production facilities in far-away countries, R&D cooperation with international partners. 2. The UNIVERSITY – support for Globalstart companies 3. The REGIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE – support for Globalstart companies This section collects information about the specific needs for support during the internationalisation process of spin-offs. This support can be provided by the university and / or the region.
1. Description of the support needed A brief description of the support which the company needed in order to set up international activities. Following areas should be discussed: R&D, production / operation, sales / market development, organisation & governance, others. 2. Organisation / programme If support with respect to internationalisation was received, the following questions should be answered: a) Which organisation (tool) provided this support? We distinguish between 3 major providers of support: - the university (TTO, research lab, etc) - the regional organisations, public vs private (regional development agency, innovation funds, business angel, etc.) - others (internet, board of directors, scientific board, other national or international organisation, international fairs and exhibitions international entrepreneurial networks, etc) b) Was the support given customized to the company or not? The support received can be customized to the company (individual advice) or general (training, seminar) c) In which way has the support been accessed? This can be via contacts received by the university TTO, board of directors, internet, network partners, etc. 3. Timing Indicate at what lifestage the support was needed (pre-venture, start-up, …, current moment, near future). Use the same lifestages as in the table mapping the different milestones of the company. 4. Evaluation of the support received a) How effective was the support received? Did the support work well? b) What support was missing? c) How could the support be improved upon in the future? 5) Importance of support How important was it for the company to receive support? Use a scale from 1 (not important to 5 (crucial) Note that several organisations might have provided support for a specific need of the company and / or the need for support may occur at different timings, with different urgency. Annex 3: Case Studies e-Trium Universal Information Robot (UIR)
1 (a) Profile and background Shine Ltd represents the IT company with an original approach to the solution of so called “decision machines”. There is a group of five IS specialists, trained both in IT and/or in business, which established company DirectNet offering to solve the information systems especially for medium sized companies, not prepared to invest enormous sums of money to the standard SW packages. During their business activities they identified the hardest problems in the generation of these systems: the communication between corporate managers and SW specialists was difficult leading often to systemic errors (not what was required was actually programmed) which are difficult to find and debug. Being aware of the math (formal) logic they realised that utilisation this tool can erase the need of such communication: the language of formal logics is Prolog, which is structured English; manager can easily check if the programme really performs according to his demands. More, the proposed structure of the information storage enables to change the rules according to which the system is behaving, and that in one place only. This withdraws another problem – once successfully tested system, passed over to company, is petrified, and each change of rules, for instance, as a result of the changing business environment, leads to the new info system design from the scratch. Here at UIR, the improper rule is released and substituted by the proper one, often by the company CEO, without the need to involve IT specialist. The group tested the system on several business cases and find out that thois is a universal method which can be applied wherever the human assistant, modest, working hard for 24 hrs a day, without complaints his salary is inadequate, not organised in Trade Unions, is needed. Whenever is it possible to list the set of rules according which he is expected to carry on the decision, he can be utilised. However, this needs to generate a specific programme to which just the set of rules is to be added (there is the analogy with the “empty” expert system, but UIR is organised in a different way). In the development work several steps leading to the increase of the speed of operation have been identified and the last version of design, v.5, should be bi-lingual (Cz-En), or eventually multilingual, operating with the “tailor-suited” database system, and competent to carry on the most demanding tasks. The main restriction appeared to be the lack of finance. For some time the core team of 4 persons developed the system as a hobby, in a leisure time. Then they subsidised its development from earnings from the customer IT systems development and from the other profit bearing business activities. The only early phase venture capital fund have studied the case but refused to invest here, because the IPR protection of SW is weak (by copyright only). In late 2004 the group succeeded to get the loan from the state programme “Guarantee” – some 23,000 €, which enabled them to purchase the more powerful server and hire some PhD students to extend the development capacity. This was the main reason why the design has been delayed for more then a year in comparison with plans. During 2004 year the group transformed itself, creating 2 companies – eTrium Ltd is responsible for the development, maintenance and updating of the basic SW system, and eTrium Corporation, responsible for the business activities. This one will be holder of the IPR, inclusive patent (which is under preparation for USA) – if granted – and will seek a strong partner to invest into the final phase of the project. This is necessary because the efficiency of the system will without any doubts raise the attention of the global players in the field – SAP in Europe, Oracle in USA, which will do their best to retain their specific position in the market. Actually, the materials for the would be investors have been prepared, anyhow, the opening of the CR state programme “Innovation”, under which the combination of the “de minimis” contribution with the regular loan will enable to do the most important modification before the invitation of the investor and hence to retain bigger share of the company. In 2004 they went to contact with the experienced entrepreneur from Slovakia, with whom they prepared the very “user friendly” business model which makes all the matter really attractive for a wide community of businessmen. 1 (b) Major milestones
1 (c) The internationalisation process The company is in a very fragile position. The idea has enormous commercial potential, which will definitely attract the global players to this problem solution. Today the market of the decision machines, estimated in tens of billions USD p.a., is growing, and the utilisation of UIR will cut off the many sources of permanent work; even the specialists can feel to be jeopardised by the implementation of the system in which their skills are not required. The strongest protection of the idea is based on the fact that the IT specialists are not trained in formal logics and mostly they are not able to imagine the impact which its utilisation can have for their work. Also the experimenting with the different types of databases before the optimal one has been found represents some time lead. Anyhow, a strong global partner is needed rather sooner then later, as it is possible to expect the patent infringements or the other steps against the technology dissemination. Resources Only in 2004 Czech government prepared the programmes utilising the Structural funds to support the innovation activities. This will help to develop the really operable product. For the global dissemination the global partner is to be found. Directory: pub pub -> Project Scoring Template Pre-Construction Phase New Core/Branch Campus Projects pub -> Acm word Template for sig site pub -> The german unification, 1815-1870 pub -> Baltic Olympiads in Informatics: Challenges for Training Together pub -> Preparation of Papers for ieee transactions on medical imaging pub -> Forthcoming meetings and conferences pub -> Asilomar Conference on Circuits, Systems & Computers, Pacific Grove, ca, November 1978, pp. 55 58 pub -> Forthcoming meetings and conferences pub -> Harmonised compatibility and sharing conditions for video pmse in the 7 9 ghz frequency band, taking into account radar use Download 1.73 Mb. Share with your friends:
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