Alain le Loux MBA MSc.
Business Accelerator ICTLabs
http://eit.ictlabs.eu
Boost of ICT business
http://eit.europa.eu European Institute for Innovation & Technology
Background Alain le Loux 1
Background & history ICT Labs 2
Thematic Action Lines of ICT Labs 3
Contents of the ICT Labs Entrepreneur Support Program 4
ICT impact & the valley of death 5
Coaching of ICT companies 6
Examples of common problems 7
Contact details 8
Questions ? 9
Topics
1. Background Alain le Loux (1971) - Education
• University of Twente (1989 – 1994)
• Computer Science, Technology Management & Communications
• Business School Nederland
• Executive MBA (1999 - 2001) – cum laude graduated
• Marketing Management, Strategic Management
• Financial Management, IT Management
• Human Resource Management, Operations Management
• International Management
• Training courses
• General Management, Marketing, Mass communication
• Prince-2 Projectmanagement
• Winning Major Sales, SPIN sales training
• Etc. etc. etc.
1. Background Alain le Loux – Business experience
• 18 years in IT-business & 3 years health technology
• 2011 until now: Business Accelerator ICT Labs
• Particularly: coach @ StartUpWeekend.org
• 2009 until now: Business Accelerator Kennispark Twente
• 2008 – 2009 : CEO Virobuster Technologies
• 2004 – 2008: Managing Director Division “Application Services & Projects”
• Getronics PinkRoccade (1.000 FTE; member executive committee), € 130 million yearly revenue
• 2002-2004: BU Director “Managed Application Services” (300 FTE)
• 1999-2002: Manager Client Software (70 FTE)
• 1997-1998: Project Manager
• 1996: Bid Manager
• 1995: Consultant New Technologies
2. EIT ICT Labs Vision and Mission
EIT ICT Labs will turn Europe into the global leader in ICT Innovation
EIT ICT Labs aims at
the radical transformation of Europe towards a knowledge-based society
turning ICT innovation into quality of life
Paris
Helsinki
Eindhoven Berlin
Stockholm
Trento
Thematic Action Lines
Health & well-being including ambient assisted living, digital medicine
Smart Spaces including service-centered home
Intelligent Transportation Systems novel forms of safer & sustainable traffic and transportation systems
Smart Energy Systems smart energy management, Green ICT
Future Media and Content Delivery entertainment, education, accessing media
3. EIT ICT Labs - Thematic Action Lines
Digital Cities towards intelligent and sustainable digital cities
A Thematic Action Line …
Has an application area with a long-term business objective
Integrates research, innovation and education
Has clear leadership
Must be European-wide
Integrates relevant technological competences
Has a Strategic Ambition which includes a clear vision and a measurable objective
4. Entrepreneur Support Program
Mentoring & Coaching
Valorization
Connection bridges with customers and distributors
Incubation
Internationalization
Reduced time-to-market of new products and/or services
Per country: Entrepreneur support / business acceleration of the TOP-5 companies. Every year around 20 – 30 new spin-off companies.
5. ICT Impact
EU: 25% of GDP growth and 40% of productivity growth are due to ICT
EU: Differences in economic performance between industrialized countries are largely explained by levels of ICT investment, ICT research, and -use, and by the competitiveness of information society and media industries.
It is increasingly through productivity gains and wealth created in other sectors that ICT has its major impact
NL: ICT important sector: both in size (7% of Dutch GDP, >24,000 companies, 30 bln Euro) and in growth rate (>2% above average) ICT plays an important role in the growth of productivity in ALL domains were ICT is used in. 50% of production gains are attributed to ICT.
5. Valley of death
Gap in available Cash necessary to develop technology to proof-of-principle, prototype, and / or product
Gaps in Information between entrepreneur and potential investor and partner about - Technology: What is it?
- Potential of Technology: What can it do?
- Business Opportunity: What size market?
Risks
• Technological & Financial
• Health care: Regulation
No Capital
Capital to develop ideas to innovations
5. Linear Innovation Process
• Technology search
• Market research
• Funding sources
Market
Testing
Production
Process
Development
Launch
Proof
of
Concept
Design
and
Development
Basic
Research
Applied
Research
Version
Control
• Tech transfer
opportunities
• Competitor tracking
• Licensing in
• Patentability evaluation (patent & literature search)
• Competitor product analysis
• Government / industry regulations
• Component / process licensing opportunity search
• Maintain
patents
• License out
• Infringement
searching
• Product & component specification
• Design & technical requirements
• Industry standards
• Comp. analysis
• Marketing
• Production
IDEATION DEVELOPMENT PRODUCT
MARKETS UNIVERSITIES KNOWLEDGE
6. Coaching of ICT companies - generic approach
• Professionalize the marketing of the products and services
• Professional outlook of the whole company
• Positioning of the products / services
Focus on USP’s and customer value
Industrialization of products
• Finding the best pricing strategy
Low entrance & flexible pricing
• Preparing future company growth (organization development milestones)
• Financial planning
• Patents & protection of the business
• Focus, focus and speed !!
• Focus on launching customers
• CEO coaching & team development
• Deal making & coaching
• Commercial attack plan
• Strategic direction
• Internationalization
Example 1 BlueMark Innovations Location: Enschede (NL)
Size: 4 FTE
Website www.bluemark-innovations.com
Description BlueMark Innovations offers a platform: • where users are located inside a
building using Bluetooth technology. • access to personalized and location-
based information via mobile internet on smartphones.
• the location of users is updated real-time with an accuracy up to 1 meter.
Examples •indoor TomTom: navigate visitors in your building •Indoor Location Based Services (LBS): inform users about nearby shops, restaurants, localized commercial messages. •Location-based mobile advertising •Proximity detection: personalize commercial messages of your narrow-casting system. •Business intelligence: acquire detailed information how visitors use your building.
Example 2 Smart Signs: innovative wayfinding
Location: Enschede (NL)
Size: 8 FTE
Website: www.smartsigns.nl
Description: Smart Signs are a new type of electronic door- and way-signs (using RFID) that present personalized guidance and messaging. Users will get a smart tag and by intelligent monitors they will get the way finding information and also the room reservation information on the outside of rooms.
Typical customers: • Offices, Hospitals, Museums,
Exhibitions, Airports, Hotels, Cruisers, etc.
Example 3 Security Matters - Network Intrusion Detection Software
Location: Enschede (NL)
Size: 5 FTE
Website: www.securitymatters.eu
Description
Security Matters has built the Network Intrusion Detection suite (SilentDefense) that will:
• Detect zero-day and targeted attacks
• Reduce the number of false positives
• Create a customized shield for organization’s own web services
Typical customers:
• Banking, Insurance, Government, Ministry of Defense, etc.
7. Examples of common problems
A. Help, I have a customer. And now ? How much money do I ask?
B. I don’t have General Terms & Conditions!
C. Help, I have 100 potential customers in a specific field, but no one wants to have my solution. I’m sure they are interested in it! We don’t know what we are doing wrong.
D. I never get customers trough the website.
E. Do I need patents or not? It is quite expensive ?
F. Help, we need money for our marketing and further growth.
G. How to get the first customers ?
H. We want to grow fast. What to do ?
A. Pricing
Start situation: company wants to deliver software to customer for € 80.000.
General questions about pricing:
• Competitors ?
• What is the customer value ?
• What will it cost if the customer develops itself ?
customer value
€ 2 million per year
Maximum price level
0
proposal € 80.000
Cost of own development > € 1.000.000
B. General Terms & Conditions
C. Pricing
Start situation: € 5.000 per year, need to sign for an agreement for 3 years
Company delivers software for educational institutes.
Problem: didn’t sell to customers. Potential list of 100 customers in a specific field.
After mailings and visiting only 1 customer.
Solution:
• low threshold
• € 400 per month, no restrictions
Result:
• Within 3 months, more then 20 new customers
D. Search Engine Optimalization
Different approaches for SEO.
1 of the solutions is working with landing pages.
E. Patents
Initial patent application: ~ € 5000 – 7000
PCT application: ~ € 5000
…after 30 months costs rise significantly:
Sell/license patent before 30 months
E. Patents
Example:
Technology company has 7 secrets which could be patented.
1 Important secret: we patent it (afterwards: it is public information)
2 Important secret: we patent it (afterwards: it is public information)
3 Important secret: we patent it (afterwards: it is public information)
4 REAL secret: we didn’t patent it
5 REAL secret: we didn’t patent it
6 We used this as a USP to customers (we described only the customer value and not the technique itself)
7 We used this as a USP to customers (we described only the customer value and not the technique itself)
F. Writing business plans for investors
F. Business models
Business Model Generation (Osterwalder & Pigneur)
F. www.businessmodelgeneration.com
Negotiation with the first leads.
Business accelerator takes the lead in the customer conversation
Use of the Spin Selling techniques (Neil Rackham) Situation, Problem, Implication, Need Payoff
G. First customers
H. Business growth
http://www.paullemberg.com/articles.html
8. Contact details
ir. Alain le Loux MBA
+31 6 29 52 63 81
www.linkedin.com/alainleloux
Alain le Loux
ICT Labs
High Tech Campus 69
5656 AA Eindhoven
The Netherlands
http://eit.ictlabs.eu
EIT ICT Labs
Page 29
Thank you for your attention!