When researchers come to the Technology Transfer Office with a brilliant idea, it is often not clear what the commercialization possibilities are. The idea is often very technical in nature, making it difficult to align in with potential commercialization options. Therefore, it is important for Technology Transfer Officers to assess the commercialization opportunities of these technologies. They can decide to perform market research themselves or to rather rely on marketing agencies such as BEM in France. However, in case the market is still emerging, it might be more useful to test the technology and its potential applications in a living lab. www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu

1. Marketing
FITT
– Fostering Interregional Exchange in ICT Technology Transfer –
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

2. Marketing
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating,
delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and
society at large.
Source: American Marketing Association (2007)
Marketing is the wide range of activities involved in making sure that you're continuing to
meet the needs of your customers and getting value in return. Marketing is usually focused
on one product or service. Thus, a marketing plan for one product might be very different
from that for another product.
Marketing activities include
1) “Inbound marketing," such as market research to find out, for example, what groups of
potential customers exist, what their needs are, which of those needs you can meet, how you
should meet them, etc. Inbound marketing also includes analyzing the competition,
positioning your new product or service (finding your market niche), and pricing your products
and services.
2) "Outbound marketing" which includes promoting a product through continued
advertising, promotions, public relations and sales.
Source: http://www.managementhelp.org/ad_prmot/defntion.htm
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3. Inbound Marketing
In the setting of Technology Transfer Officers, inbound marketing is
important in order to commercialize the research results of researchers. It
is extremely important to perform market research to get more information
about the market potential of the invention.
Inbound marketing allows getting detailed insight into the positioning of
new products and services by using new media on the internet e.g. search
engine optimization may be very effective.
In-market testing allows you to observe customer response in an actual
purchasing situation
Market Assessment
Templates for Technological Marketing
Living Labs in ICT
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4. Market Assessment
Investigation of the market potential of new incoming project proposals
Rejection No Go
Technological Analysis 90% of ideas
Idea
Technology Transfer Team
Potential Market Analysis
Go Commercial Services
On Hold
10% of ideas
Licensing Spin-Off
Company Formation Investment Decision
New Ventures Team Investment Team
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5. Templates for Technological Marketing
Process of technological marketing studies at CEA
Pre-study
Agreement
• Definition of the issue, scope of the study
Specifications • Objectives, expected results, timing, cost Template for specifications
Preliminary analysis
• Value chain, segmentation, legislation
Phase 1 : • Way to find information
Data collection • Interview guide, doc of presentation,,….
Interviews
• Face to face, phone, focus group
Study
Phase 2 :
interviews
Synthesis and data analysis
• Minutes of the interviews
Phase 3 : • Market segmentation
Synthesis • Demand and offer analysis
• Recommandations
Post-study
After the study
• Satisfaction questionnaire directly after the presentation of the study and also 4 months later
Follow up and • Letters to the interviewed to thank them
satisfaction • Follow up of the contacts and of the action plan decided
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6. Living Labs in ICT
Industry
Convergence
Failing Increased
Innovation Competition
Even more
Only Competition
Incremental
Innovation Shortened
Life Cycles
Living Lab A Unique Environment to Experiment with
= Real Innovation, with Users and the Complete Value
Network
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7. Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing entails tradeshows, seminars, emailing, cold
calling, telemarketing, print advertising, etc.
Outbound marketing is less important in the setting of Technology
Transfer Officers as it regards the process of promoting new products
and services. Marketing is all about getting business, knowing your
customer, segmenting the market, structuring the action plan to go to
market. This is a process that largely takes place once the venture has
been created. Therefore, no practices of outbound marketing were
included in the toolbox.
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8. Suggested Readings
Link to bibliography
Link to code book
Valorization
Transfer opportunity
Time-to-market
Early adopters
Early majority
Link to related websites
http://www.managementhelp.org/ad_prmot/defntion.htm
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