Technology Acquisition and R&D with Enterprise Ireland, PJ'O'Reilly

1. Title
Sub-title
PLACE PARTNER’S
LOGO HERE
European Commission
Enterprise and Industry
European Commission
Enterprise and Industry
The Stage Gate Process for R&D and New Product
Development.The European Enterprise Network – Licensing
as a possible alternative to in-house R&D
Galway May 26th
2015
P.J. O’Reilly

2. Title of the presentation | Date |2
Aims
• Prompt you to re-evaluate your own particular
business concept and position with a more
commercial bias.
• Consider Technology Acquisition and or R&D
• Consider idea generation and evaluation
• Stage-gate concept
• IP and its commercial value to your business
• Prompt you to look at strategies and
approaches to developing your own business

3. Title of the presentation | Date |3
605 partner
organisations in
52 countries
Geographical Spread of the
Enterprise Europe Network
Recent - USA, Mexico
Russia, China
South Korea
Tunisia
Japan
Brazil
Canada
India

4. Title of the presentation | Date |4
Your Company Type and the associated
Risks
 Established business (improvement to
existing product, introduction of a new
product to existing market,
 Introduction of existing product to new
market)
New business (new entity, new product,
unknown market)

5. Title of the presentation | Date |5
Your Idea / concept
Consider the following questions.
• What is it
• Who wants it (customer)
• Why do they want it (customer need or
want, competitive advantage)
• Will they pay for it
• What will they pay for it

6. Title of the presentation | Date |6
Idea evaluation
• Evaluate novelty of idea from journals, trade
information, web searches, patent searches (how
new is it, will it create competitive advantage in its
target market? Is there a need to use someone elses
IP to produce your product? will it generate IP?)
• Be sure evaluation is objective. Be cautious about
subjective evaluations (eg family, friends etc)
• Eliminate or shelve non commercial ideas!!! (do not
get trapped by or become obsessed with a poor idea)

7. Title of the presentation | Date |7
Stage-gate concept

8. Title of the presentation | Date |8
Development Process and Stage-gate
• Develop concept
• Evaluate (pass or kill)
• Prototype stage
• Evaluate (pass or kill)
• Design stage
• Evaluate (pass or kill)
• Design for manufacture
• Evaluate (pass or kill)
• Launch.

9. Title of the presentation | Date |9
Why stage-gate the development?
• Development costs increase with time
• It costs little to kill off a project at
ideation stage
• A misconceived project pushed to
product launch stage or a product that
does not sell, can kill your business

10. Title of the presentation | Date |10
Reality Check
Risks involved in starting a business
from an idea.
 100 evaluated ideas results in one
commercial product (100 to 1)
One idea (odds remain the same 100 to 1)
Critical therefore to minimise overall risk
and exposure to loss

11. Title of the presentation | Date |11
Audits
 Know and understand what gives your
company competitive advantage and value
(what do you do better than others)
 The key strengths and weaknesses of your
company
 Where or with what person do capabilities
reside within your company
 Understand, record and manage these
sources of competitive advantage.

12. Title of the presentation | Date |12
IP / Patents
• There may be protectable IP in the future
from your idea (know-how, secrecy, patents,
design, copyright) do not give it away foolishly
during development stage.
• Consider “Real” or “Commercial” value of
patent
• To patent or not. Can your claims be
engineered around. What strength exists in
the claims.
• First to market advantage

13. Title of the presentation | Date |13
Business Elements
• Design, R&D, Manufacturing, HR, Finance,
Marketing, Sales, Distribution, Customer
relations, technical support, After-sales
service.
• Success requires numerous specific skill
sets, clear strategies, systems and
planning.
• Avoid the natural tendency to hide in your
own comfort zone

14. Title of the presentation | Date |14
Extracting money from an idea or starting a
business???
Overall business strategy.
Is your aim to make money from your idea
or is your aim to start a business using
your idea as a springboard.
What business will you be in?
What will your business look like? (lifestyle
company or a multinational). Who are your
customers etc

15. Title of the presentation | Date |15
Extracting money from your idea
NO ONGOING BUSINESS FUTURE --- OPTIONS INCLUDE
 Outright sale of idea (patented or not)
 Develop business with the specific intention of selling
in the short to medium term
 Partnership / licensing model
 Combination of above

16. Title of the presentation | Date |16
Market Development
• Strategy (manufacture and sell, or
license,)
• Target markets, sectors, territories
• Distribution channels, agents,
licensees, Legislation
• CE marking, compliance, certification,
approvals
• Packaging
• Marketing materials

17. Title of the presentation | Date |17
Consider
An idea in itself is commercially
worthless!!!
There is nothing new in this world!!!
All inventors are fanatics and
possessed!!!
I know this is worth Millions!!!!!
Build it and they will come!!!!

18. Title of the presentation | Date |18
Do’s
• Start with customer view of the world
• Evaluate, validate, test. early and often.
• Be objective, do not fall in love with your
invention
• Shelve or kill projects as early as
possible
• Develop all aspects of business project
concurrently

19. Title of the presentation | Date |19
Do’s and don’ts
• Identify gaps in skills and experience
and resolve them
• There is assistance available, avail of it
• Call us
• Innovation Vouchers and Innovation
Partnerships.

20. Title of the presentation | Date |20
Thank you,