This document summarizes the knowledge transfer process of a methodology called TIPA (Tudor ITSM Process Assessment) from academic research to commercialization. It highlights the difficulties in transferring intellectual property like a methodology that builds on protected standards. The TTO (Technology Transfer Office) identified issues like lack of market understanding, intellectual property licensing, and a viable business model. The TTO worked to develop TIPA into a product, address IP and licensing, gain management support, and find commercial partners to help bring the methodology to market as an IT service management assessment standard.

1. FITT (Fostering Interregional Exchange in ICT Technology Transfer)

2. TIPA Knowledge Transfer – in brief Case illustrates an example of Knowledge Transfer of a methodology Started from research outputs to commercialisation (still in process) Case highlights the difficulties of Technology Transfert in the case of difficult to protect intellectual property (IP) like a methodology especially when building on protected IP (ITIL ® and ISO standards) ITIL® is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) in the United Kingdom and other countries. IT Infrastructure Library® is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries.

3. TIPA – Introduction Tudor’s ITSM Process Assessment: Methodology to perform a process assessment of IT Service Management (ITSM) Based on the ISO Standard 15504 and ITIL ® (and ISO 20000) ISO/IEC15504 ITIL® / ISO 20000 (Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination) SPICE Guide to process assessment Best Practices in ITSM Little known outside the automotive industry Used around the world Basic function: Process assessment of Software development Basic Function: Improve the alignment of IT services with the business requirement of an enterprise and the end users (mostly internal ones)

4. TIPA – History - Background TIPA project run in parallel with our involvement in the ISO/IEC15504 and ISO/IEC20000 CRP Henri Tudor involved in various ISO committees Interesting for researchers : Contribute to new standards Build a network in their field of expertise Have access to the work in progress Co-editor of the future part 5 and 7 of the ISO/IEC20000 (IT Service Management standard) Active participant in the development of the ISO/IEC15504 (Process Assessment standard)

5. Situation before involvement of the TTO (1) Most of the research work done prior to 2006 (2 years before) with few commercial exploitation Methodology tested with consultants in private companies Knowledge transfer done: Mainly through consulting (performing the assessment for others) Training (but offered only in our offices in Luxembourg)

6. Situation before involvement of the TTO (2) Intellectual Property – Licensing in Work based on ITIL and ISO standard but Never check if we could use the trademark No idea what copyrighted material we had the right to use No idea if we were reusing copyrighted material Ex. Is using the vocabulary a copyright infringement? A Tudor’s jurist had inform them that they might infringe on third party IP and could be expensive if not solved It was decided to solve the problem to stop using and working on ITIL

7. Situation before involvement of the TTO (3) Intellectual Property – Licensing out Tudor was contacted by one of the Big four interested in the model and tools Became apparent we had little to transfer out Bulk of know-how and methodology was saved in a few researcher’s brain Transfer model used before – training, coaching and supervision of an assessment was not acceptable to a multinational consulting company No support material to the training Hope to used the trademark as a hook to cash in a bit on the methodology Trademark on AIDA – the project name – was pending at European level Problem internationally the AIDA trademark was already subject to a legal fight between Aida Cruise (Germany) and Disney Corp (yes the Mickey Mouse one!)

8. Situation before involvement of the TTO (4) Market and business model No assessment of the market ever made No idea about its size, potential partners, competitors, what customers wanted, etc. Understanding the customers needs not seen as part of our job Either the buyers know why he is buying or the consultants knows what he his selling Surprised by questions from consultants: “How to sell this?” Answer: “You should know!” Target market limited to Luxembourg Even though assessment where made internationally thanks to local contact and it was assumed that their could be an international interest Reason: current business model was resources intensive – covering the needs of Luxembourg was enough strain on the competent employees

9. Involvement of the TTO (1) Project identified after contact external inquiry by a Big Four TTO identified the previous problems and highlighted the lack of transferable product The Knowledge transfer consisted of a resource consuming: 5 days face to face training Participation in an assessment by customers performed by Tudor Leading an assessment under the monitoring of Tudor No book, no manual, no solid training slides that could be reused by third party First step of the TTO – Understanding the market

10. Involvement of the TTO (2) – Market Quantitative look Demand growing fast: In 2006, 100,000 people were certified annually internationally In the year 2008, over 350,000 people were certified growth rate of over 150% per year over the 2 previous years More than a million people were ITIL certified The HR needs in the field were also growing very fast, see graph

11. Involvement of the TTO (3) – Market Qualitative look Two Focus Group made consisting of IT Managers and IT consultants: First consisted of users, findings: Very high satisfaction of end users with TIPA Provided the tools required Filled a business need for which there was no solution on the market Second group consisted of people unfamiliar with TIPA: Couldn’t see any added value to the methodology Couldn’t understand the purpose of TIPA Unhappy that we couldn’t give an overview in a few words Discrepancy between two groups highlight communication deficiency Basically to understand the purpose of the methodology you had to take a 5 days course Lack of a commercial wrap in our communication (too technical, too much attention to details – can’t see the forest from the trees)

12. Involvement of the TTO (4) – Market a look at the competitors Process assessment in IT offered by most consulting firms but: Lack of common standard Impossible to do benchmarking No firm wanted to adopt a standard develop by a competitor Assessments performed under black box scheme Impossible to know who has a solid assessment and who built it overnight Impossible to say if assessment made by two different employees in the same firm were comparable No trainings on the market on how to perform an assessment Firms make more money charging for assessments than sharing knowledge Consulting firms would welcome an open standard

13. Involvement of the TTO (5) – Business model TIPA needed to be developed into a product (i.e. Book, trainings, tools) as too much of it was based on competence that could not be transfer per se Also diminish the risk of loosing the know-how with the employees TIPA always have some added value as an assessment tool, but greatest added value achieved if it becomes a standard in the industry Network effect Goal of the valorisation effort: make TIPA the de facto standard in ITSM Assessment around the world

14. Involvement of the TTO (6) – Business model Two major options were looked at: Open source: Free and available to everyone (preferred by the researchers): Will it help to achieve our global domination goal? Who will put the money into marketing and communication? Us? Do we want to spend Research money on marketing? Distributed freely on our website? Free is nice but if you don’t know it exist, you will prefer the paying version. And in the case of innovative solution, if you don’t know about it you might not even realise there is a problem... Not free but ‘open’... If people can make money from promoting TIPA, they will. If we can make money with it, it insures a steady flow of research money for the research programme

15. Involvement of the TTO (7) – Business model After consulting potential partners: Opted for the “Not free” option Deal with the main international editor in the field (Van Haren Publishing) Looking for partners for training and certification of people Keeping the tools required to perform an assessment very cheap (or free as they are mostly useless without the book or training)

16. TTO in action (1) – IP Solved the licensing in issues Cancelled a previous trademark registration under the AIDA name Rebranded the AIDA project into Tudor ITSM Process Assessment (TIPA) and registered the trademark Tudor inclusion in the name builds our public research centre’s brand Name is descriptive (important for business users and search engines) Not competing for ranking on the web with Verdi’s famous opera!

17. TTO in action (2) – Getting management support Research results not ready to be sold Require more budget to “package” the results into a product TTO got the management support and the budget to do a knowledge transfer operation Project should make money In the mean time the financial crisis had a huge impact on the partners and ITSM market, but risk is part of any business

18. Valorisation in action (3) – Interpret between science and business Basically doing the job of a product manager in a first time and a business developer in a second one: Product planning ( Identifying new product candidates; Gathering market requirements; Determine business-case and feasibility; Scoping and defining new products at high level, Evangelizing new products within the company) Product marketing ( Product positioning and outbound messaging; Promoting the product externally with press, customers, and partners; Bringing new products to market; Monitoring the competition) Finding and negotiation with partners Networking

19. Conclusion on Risk Management Risk Management was probably the biggest internal hindrance to this project Any commercialisation involve a part of risk: You can never plan the next financial crisis or virulent disease Accepting only the ‘riskless’ project means a high risk of missing opportunities Chance is involve in most products, even big companies have a high failing grade projects that die in the last stage either before or after being put on the shelves Risk taking should be proportional to potential gain Don’t forget to factor in the non monetary gain (reputation, branding, employees’ satisfaction, etc) when taking a decision go-no-go

20. Future Book now in sales In negotiation with international training organisations Developing an exam and people certification Tools to support an assessment online (free for now – will probably have a premium paying one later) Looking for further product development (and associated research opportunities) using the ISO/IEC 15504