Standard strategies and action models for the commercialization of applied research and development results. Commercialization of the results of scientific and technical activities
Innovative activity in the world is now very important. Therefore, the leaders of developed and developing countries create all the conditions for their development.
Commercialization of innovations is the attraction of investors to finance the implementation of this innovation on the basis of participation in future profits if successful. At the same time, the process of bringing an innovative project to the market is a key stage of innovative activity, after which (bringing to the market) the costs of the developer (or owner) of the innovative product are reimbursed and they receive profit from their activities.
The process of bringing an innovative project to the market includes several stages:
1. If an enterprise has several projects, then to enter the market it is necessary to select projects that have commercial potential and a high degree of readiness for development. In addition, important assessments of projects are: market demand, potential payback period, profitability, risks.
2. Formation of financial resources. Usually, the company does not have or does not have enough own funds. In this case, it is necessary to attract investors.
3. Fixing the rights to the project and distribution between the participants.
4. Innovation in manufacturing process or organizing the production of an innovation with its subsequent refinement, if necessary.
Figure 7 - Participants in the process of commercialization of innovations
In the process of commercialization, it is very important to choose a method. Figure 2 shows the main ways to commercialize innovations.
The company has a choice: to independently commercialize the project and go through all the steps listed above, or you can sell a license, or completely all rights. Each method provides developers with ample opportunities for implementation. Options for making a profit from the project also depend on the project itself. If you have created equipment, then it can be sold, if you have come up with managerial or technological innovations, then the enterprise can provide engineering services. You can simply sell the license for your innovation or rent it out. For these purposes, if necessary, the enterprise can send its employee to help the partner to transfer secrets.
Sometimes it is possible to use several methods of innovation commercialization at once.
Before choosing a commercialization method, you need to consider each and choose the one that is best suited for a given situation and for a given project.
Table 4 shows the main advantages and disadvantages of each method.
Figure 8 - Ways to commercialize innovations
Table 4. Advantages and disadvantages of ways to commercialize innovations
| Ways of commercialization | Advantages | disadvantages |
| Self use | With the successful organization of production and the "seizure" of a niche in the market, very high incomes; Permanent control of the enterprise and production; full disposal of intellectual property rights (innovations). | High risks; Long payback period; Significant financial resources are required. |
| Assignment of part of the rights to innovation | Minimal risks; Small costs; Rather short payback period; Entering new markets at the expense of other companies; Possibility of forming your own trademark; Obtaining financing from the customer when concluding a contract. | Significantly less income compared to other methods of commercialization; Risk of patent infringement; The risk of counterfeit products. |
| Full transfer of rights to innovation | Minimal risks; Small costs; Minimum payback period; Possibility of getting very high income, depending on the significance of the developed innovation. | The risk of not receiving potential income; Due to the strengthening of the positions of competitors, a forced change in the field of activity is likely. |
The implementation of the first method will require significant labor, time and financial resources. Market conquest and payback is likely to be possible in the medium to long term. But even if everything is well organized, there is a risk that there will be no demand for products.
When choosing the second or third method, the investment in the project can be returned in the short term. If an enterprise sells a license, then with it a part of the market passes to the licensee, but the enterprise can also acquire a part of the licensee's market. In the case of a license sale, the developer receives a stable income in the form of royalties. When the rights are sold, the enterprise loses all its rights to the development, but receives a significant income (depending on the significance of the innovation).
There are several options for classifying licenses, they can be: patent and non-patent, exclusive and non-exclusive, limited and unlimited. Another problem for the enterprise may be the determination of the value of an intangible asset.
There are several approaches for this:
Cost approach
1. cost method
Comparative approach
1. ranking method,
2. industry standard method,
3. method of fair distribution of profits
income approach
1. royalty exemption method,
2. Savings based method,
3. income growth method
Since making a profit is the main goal, when analyzing commercialization methods, an enterprise needs to calculate the potential income and expenses when using a particular commercialization method.
Innovations are present in our life and they are necessary for the development of various fields of activity. As a rule, innovations simplify our life, bring production to new level. Therefore, most developed countries are investing huge amounts of money in the development of innovations, and all conditions are being created for young scientists.
But an important aspect in the development of innovations is their commercialization. Projects must be profitable, pay off. In most countries, no more than 10% of projects are implemented.
There are many difficulties on the way of commercialization, for example, to patent your innovation. This process can take up to a year. Then you need to decide to bring the project to life on your own, sell the license or sell all the rights. But if the project goes through all the difficulties and is successfully implemented in practice, then it can pay off dozens of times.
Similar information.
The tutorial contains a wide range of practical advice, the purpose of which is to develop in readers the skills to build an effective business, based both on promising scientific and technical developments, and on original management decisions. The manual can be used in training programs management personnel and specialists different levels for the national innovation infrastructure, as well as employees of enterprises whose functions include managing the development, production and promotion of a new product. The manual can also be used for self-study.
A series: Educational innovation
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by the LitRes company.
Moving from Idea to Market: Technology Commercialization
1.1. Technology commercialization process
Technology commercialization is the process by which R&D results are translated into products and services in the market in a timely manner. This process requires an active exchange of ideas and opinions on both technology and market issues. The results of the commercialization process bring benefits not only in the form of a return on investment in R&D, but also in the form of increased production volumes, improved quality and reduced prices, help determine the training requirements for employees to ensure the company's work in existing and newly created markets. It is the commercialization of technology that is often the main driving force causing the creation of new and the rejuvenation of old sectors of industry.
What is meant by commercialization today? Even 10-15 years ago in Russia there was simply no such word either in professional or in everyday use. In the early 90s. 20th century this term came to our country along with foreign projects, the purpose of which was to find and purchase Russian technologies for their implementation in Western markets. From a market point of view, it was foolish for the West to miss the opportunity to find and acquire interesting inventions and technologies for little money, on the basis of which a new highly profitable business could be built.
Since then, the situation has changed significantly. Today, commercialization is, first of all, building a business based on the results of scientific research, in which, as a rule, the authors of technologies themselves participate, and the participation of foreign partners is not necessary at all. Quite often, scientists understand commercialization as the process of finding and attracting additional funds to continue their scientific research. This is a fundamental misconception. The essence of commercialization is in building a “device for generating money”, i.e. a business that generates stable financial flows.
Currently, two definitions of the concept of "commercialization of R&D and technologies" are used in practice, each of which in its own way reflects the essence of this term:
Commercialization- the first stage of the privatization of a state-owned enterprise, in which the managers of the enterprise are responsible for the financial results of its activities, and the state stops providing subsidies to cover losses from economic activity.
Technology commercialization- a form of technology transfer, in which the consumer (buyer) acquires the rights to use knowledge and pays their owner (technology developer) in one form or another remuneration in the amount determined by the terms of the license (or other) agreement between them.
The commercialization of scientific developments and technologies is unambiguously associated with the innovation process, innovation activity, during which a scientific result or technological development is realized with a commercial effect. Ideally, an interested customer or consumer pays for R&D or a technology license, and much-needed funding comes to science and developers.
However, this "science - technology - money" idyll, as well as the promotion of the innovation process from start to finish, requires mandatory feedback from intermediate results and the market, because money can only be received from the market, and a scientific result or technology can be realized only in that if they are able to strengthen someone's competitive advantage, convince the end buyer of the uniqueness of the right choice and thereby bring or increase the profit of the seller of a new product.
Commercial forms of technology transfer include license agreements for the transfer of rights to use technical documentation; granting rights to use objects of intellectual (industrial) property and "know-how"; agreements for carrying out works of the "engineering" type; contracts and subcontracts for joint R&D, transfer of scientific and technical data, software; investment agreements. Commercial forms of technology transfer also include contracts for the creation, additional equipment and modernization of production and other facilities; industrial and other training; provision of technical assistance; deliveries of individual samples of products, in which the production (commercial) secrets of the owner of scientific and technical knowledge are disclosed and the conditions for the acquisition, assignment, transfer and protection of his rights are stipulated.
Technology commercialization usually takes more time and cost than previously thought, and not only does it make the right decisions, it also makes mistakes. The commercialization process is associated with a high degree of uncertainty, therefore it is more reasonable to carry out the planning of innovative activity and this activity itself using the so-called project approach, i.e., managing the commercialization process as an innovative project.
Innovation project is a set of interrelated activities aimed at achieving the set goals within a given time and with an established budget during the period of testing and finalizing the idea of creating a new product, including forecasting its market attractiveness when selling experimental batches. The purpose of the innovation project is to obtain confirmation of the planned technical, technological and commercial parameters of further business, i.e., the rationale for the business plan of the investment project for mass production, marketing and after-sales service of the developed product.
When discussing the key factors of technology commercialization that determine the success of an innovative project, three main groups of parameters are usually distinguished:
The technology itself (its level, competitive advantages, marketability);
Resources needed (among which financing is often put forward in the first place);
Management (under which is understood both the presence of relevant bright leaders and a specific management strategy, reflecting, in particular, an understanding of the laws of entering the market).
As repeatedly emphasized in the literature on the practice of investing, the decision to finance an innovative project is determined not only and not so much by technology as by management. Money is provided not by technology, but by people who manage an innovative project. A convincing management strategy plays a decisive role.
1.2. The need for innovation. The essence of innovation
Involvement in the economic turnover of the fruits of human intellectual activity is the basis of the modern world economy. A simple exchange of goods that are in demand to meet basic human needs is a long-gone stage. Today, the economic institutions of all developed countries of the world are focused on the search and formation of such human needs, the satisfaction of which is simply unthinkable without serious research work.
Modern consumer goods are the fruit of the work of many thousands of engineers and designers, economists and psychologists. What makes engineers and marketers drive progress by filling an already beautiful car with dozens of electronic assistants developed using hundreds of engineering solutions, each of which is itself the result of many years of research by dozens of scientific institutions? Why "reinvent the wheel" when a few centuries ago people learned to ride on two-wheeled units driven by muscle power? What makes the buyer lay out more and more "millions" for the satisfaction of all the same, at first glance, needs? What guides inventors and engineers, redrawing the same node dozens of times, for some reason trying to improve its functional performance by a few percent?
The answer to all these rhetorical questions was given in his works by the outstanding scientist-economist, the author of the term "innovation" and the founder of the theory of innovation, Joseph Alois Schumpeter.
What is the essence of innovation? Schumpeter writes in his writings that it is "the role of the innovator in bringing solutions to the business that will allow it to make super profits compared to competitors." That is, the main task of innovation is to increase the profitability of a business by attracting any new, non-traditional solutions and technologies in this area.
An entrepreneur who first starts using something new, non-traditional in his business, or who first offers a new product to the market, gets a unique chance to win customer loyalty. It was these entrepreneurs that Schumpeter called "innovators." When other market participants get their bearings and also begin to offer their customers a similar product, this product will no longer be a novelty and bring super profits - innovation will complete its cycle and become a traditional product. To obtain the next superprofit, the next innovation will be necessary, and so on.
In fact, we are dealing with a monopoly, which is formed for a while, until competitors have learned how to produce a similar product. This monopoly is called the innovation monopoly. The dream of any businessman is to be a monopolist, and the use of innovations is the unique chance that allows you to acquire this legal monopoly.
Thus, the attractiveness of innovative activity for business is to acquire the opportunity and the right to become a monopoly seller in the market for a certain period, dictating the price of its unique product within the purchasing power of consumers.
Defining the functions of participants in commercialization processes, two more concepts should be identified that characterize the difference in the approaches of a typical author and manager. Often, the difference between the meanings of the terms "scientific activity" and "innovative activity" contributes to the misunderstanding between them.
Dictionary of economics and finance. Glossary, ru:
Scientific activity– intellectual activity aimed at obtaining and applying new knowledge for:
solutions to technological, engineering, economic, social, humanitarian and other problems;
ensuring the functioning of science, technology and production as a single system.
Innovation activity– activities aimed at commercialization of accumulated knowledge, technologies and equipment. The result of innovation activity is new or additional goods/services or goods/services with new qualities.
The existing definitions are correct, but more specific definitions must be introduced for our understanding. As part of the training of specialists in innovation activities at the Faculty of Innovation and Technological Business of the Academy of National Economy under the Government of the Russian Federation, the following brief definitions have been adopted:
Scientific activity– use of resources to generate new knowledge.
Innovation activity– application of new knowledge to generate profit.
In recent years, thanks to the popularization of innovative activity, including from the lips of the highest officials of our state, a not entirely correct understanding of this term has begun to take shape in society. The vast majority of scientific and technical workers and researchers began to call themselves innovators, referring to the fact that the essence of innovation is in the generation of knowledge. This is a deep delusion. The generation of knowledge is one of the key tasks of humanity as a whole. It is a necessary tool for the existence and development of human civilization. The generation, preservation and transfer of knowledge to posterity is a global issue of creating the scientific and cultural heritage of any modern state, but not a question of innovative entrepreneurship.
Thus, innovation and commercialization are essentially microeconomic categories that operate in the interests of specific business entities. Abusing the misunderstanding of the differences between scientific and innovative activities, many scientists substitute concepts and try to look for new sources of funding for their research activities under the banner of commercialization.
The entrepreneur, who is usually the commercialization project manager, is oriented in a completely different way. For him, the main thing is profit. To do this, he is ready to use his knowledge, skills, guesses, intuition. Attracting technology authors to the project and using their knowledge is subject to the same goal - making a profit.
It is interesting to note that in the conditions of the modern economy, consumers are becoming, on the one hand, more choosy and demanding, and on the other, more and more dependent on manufacturers. Manufacturers vied with each other to offer ever more perfect and intricate goods and services, convincing buyers that this particular product is absolutely necessary for them (consumers) at the moment. Each salesperson is simply playing their part as an "innovator" by trying to momentarily become a monopoly. This is nothing but a manifestation of the competitive struggle, victory in which is practically impossible without the use of such weapons as a new, "innovative" product.
Fashion for innovation comes every six years. Each new generation of top managers enthusiastically embarks on the path of finding the next innovation that will change the world, and faces the same difficulties - the need to uproot the weeds that stifle the fragile sprouts of innovation. Over the past 25 years, there have been at least four waves of increased competition, and hence the widespread popularity of innovation.
The first occurred in the late 1970s - early 1980s. This is the time of Apple and IBM, Sony Walkman players and Toyota cars. At the same time, the craze for the concept of integrated, or "total", quality management began.
The second wave came in the late 1980s. Then the companies urgently reorganized to avoid aggressive takeovers. Companies created new divisions in order to earn money from their own ideas, and not to play into the hands of monsters like Microsoft. In addition, during the era of reorganization, products that could instantly conquer the world market were favored.
The third wave was generated by the Internet boom of the 1990s. Many mature companies began to look for fundamentally new business models. Traditional "flesh and blood" companies rushed to create stand-alone Internet projects, often unrelated to the main business, or even contradicting it.
The current innovation wave has risen in a completely different environment. Realizing that it is impossible to endlessly acquire new businesses, and freeing themselves from the charms of technology, companies set their sights on organic growth. General Electric, IBM and other surviving giants began to consider the development of innovation as part of corporate policy. This time, the main form of innovation is new products that meet new consumer needs. Iconic innovations in this era include the Apple iPod and Procter & Gamble's Swilfer mops.
How to convey to the understanding of the buyer that he should purchase a mobile phone manufactured by our company? It needs something to stand out from the many similar devices. For example, you can combine a mobile phone with a camera. Will it make better and better calls and perform basic functions? Unlikely. But it will be bought with a slightly higher probability.
For the first time, mobile phones with a built-in camera were put on the market by the Japanese company J-Phone in 2000. Already in 2003, every sixth (!) mobile phone sold in the world was equipped with a built-in camera. In 2006, this figure doubled.
When such devices first appeared, the quality of photographs left much to be desired. On the resulting frame, it was only possible to distinguish the main motifs of the image, without claiming photographic accuracy. Modern camera phones allow you to take pictures of good quality, comparable to those made by digital devices of the most entry-level. Some models today already boast quite decent optics and resolution.
It is the competitive struggle that forces manufacturers to invent ever more sophisticated ways to distort the buyer's ideas about his needs in such a way that when he sees a new product, he plunges into nirvana and feels that he has finally found exactly what he needs at the moment. Given the high degree of intelligibility of the modern buyer, only a certain new offer, including one based on the application of R&D results in the production of this product, can become an “ideal” product. Obviously, before launching a mobile phone with a built-in camera on the market, J-Phone conducted a significant amount of research and technical testing of its new products.
It's funny that for quite a long time, investments in a new high-tech business were regarded by experts as "unreasonable investments." As Gleason Archer wrote in 1938, “Fifteen years is middle period approbation, during which the inventor, manager and investor, who see a bright future for the invention, can lose their pants. Social need, even for a great invention, usually develops more slowly. This is why prudent capitalists stay away from exploiting new technologies.” Even today, some companies that bring new technologies to market adhere to the principle of "all or nothing" - and nothing in between. There is a failure to apply the principles of commercialization management. Companies "the old fashioned way" invest money and look from the outside: will it be possible to capture the market, will it be lucky with random factors? Some get it, most don't. The new rhythm of the modern economy requires more careful management of the processes of introducing new products to the market.
How to pave the way from the idea of a new product to the final customer? This path is not easy and quite long. Hundreds of new devices are invented every day, thousands of patents are registered all over the world. Hundreds of doctoral dissertations are defended - and all "for the good of man." Volume Human Knowledge is multiplied daily. Obviously, the public institute of science is built on the principle of deferred economic effect. Today, we are investing heavily in research and development, and perhaps in a few decades, humanity will feel the positive effects of today's efforts and expenditures. However, any entrepreneur is interested in making a profit today, so it is in his interests to make the transition from the result of research and development directly to the market, that is, to making a profit.
1.3. Transition from idea to market
To begin with, we define the conceptual and terminological apparatus. So, idea. What is usually meant by this term? It has many definitions, for example:
Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language by Vladimir Dahl:
IDEA, f., lat. The concept of a thing; intellect, representation, imagination of an object; mental image. II Thought, fiction, invention, fiction; II Intention, design.
Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language D.N. Ushakov:
IDEA, and, well. [Greek ideas]. Thought, concept about something. object, an image comprehended by the mind.
Great Soviet Encyclopedia:
IDEA(Greek idea) - a form of comprehension in thought of the phenomena of objective reality, which includes the consciousness of the goal and projections of further cognition and practical transformation of the world.
In our case, we agree to understand the term “idea” as a certain set of mental conclusions that can be materialized in the form of an object or a certain technology. Such technical ideas are usually the result of many years of painstaking research work. Even those who call themselves inventors in the overwhelming majority of cases generate new knowledge not as a result of insight, but as a result of fairly long reflections on the essence of the problem being solved.
Thus, an idea is a result of mental labor. However, it is worth noting that most technically oriented inventors do not progress beyond the concept stage. A concept implemented in the form of a finished device or in the form of technological documentation represents the next redistribution of knowledge, it is no longer an idea in its purest form. For such advancement, slightly different abilities are required, in addition to the ability to generate technical ideas and solutions.
The modern world economy demonstrates an unprecedented pace. New corporations spring up as quickly as small businesses once did. The rhythm of economic relations forces all participants to adapt to them. This adjustment is expressed in the need to constantly generate some kind of management decisions and use more and more new products in your business, constantly offering the market new products and services. Largely new idea is the result of the author's insight. Insights in the minds occur often, but the success of the implementation of ideas in the vast majority of cases is determined by a fortunate combination of circumstances. A good example is patents. They are registered, transferred to the authors and become a kind of "trophies" of the inventor - they decorate the "wall of honor" of the author, being evidence of his technical achievements. Many and unreasonably expensive technical solutions included in new or upgraded products that do not achieve the planned success in the market.
Some technologies fail because they are being applied to products that are currently not in demand and likely never will be, despite the expectation of such demand from the promotional company. In other words, the authors of the technology and product made a mistake in predicting the potential demand for it. Other technologies continue to be in search of a product in which they can be applied, sometimes remaining unclaimed for decades. After that, they fall into the category of technologies that have not succeeded because their claimed characteristics no longer meet modern needs, or because they no longer attract enough interest or require too many resources to re-demonstrate capabilities.
As a result, independent entry into the market for some technologies has a number of insurmountable obstacles. Like a momentary miracle, some technologies appear for a moment and are never heard from again. Their problem is positioning and bringing information to a potential buyer. They have not been able to find an adequate way to enter the market, they have not been able to fit into a sustainable commercialization process based on purely competitive advantages.
To understand what the mistakes of such technologies were, it is necessary to know where the greatest risks lie in the commercialization processes and what their nature is. After analyzing dozens of examples, we can summarize the typical stages at which situations are most likely to occur when things start to go completely different from what was originally planned:
Building an adequate relationship between the essence of the proposed technology and the existing market opportunity.
The transfer of technology to those in whose competence to allow or prevent its dissemination.
Development of technology to a stage sufficient to realize its true potential, including understanding whether its cost will be effective in terms of achieving planned results.
Mobilization of adequate resources for technology demonstration.
Successful demonstration of the technology in the context in which it will be used.
Mobilization of market instruments necessary to achieve market success and profit from the implementation of technology.
Promotion of the finished product among the audience, which, as a rule, is skeptical.
Choosing an appropriate business model for doing business within the relevant sector of the economy.
Building a sustainable innovative business in order to receive sustainable profit from the implementation of technology.
On fig. Figure 1.1 shows five main stages that characterize the implementation of the commercialization process.
As can be seen from the figure, on the way new technology There are five stages, or stages, from its primary generation to market success. Obviously, each stage is important in its own way. It is necessary to single out any link from the chain - and it will collapse. By analogy with this chain, consider the sequence of value increments in commercialization processes (Fig. 1.2).
Rice. 1.1. The main stages of commercialization and the relationship between them
Rice. 1.2. Commercialization chain
Both illustrations are conceptually similar. Obviously, idea generation always comes first. In any commercialization project, the role of the author is indisputable. Without the author, the R&D result itself is impossible. However, one must be aware that the idea itself has no value. According to the canons of marketing, the buyer is ready to pay only for the satisfaction of his needs. So how do you find a way to transform an idea into a satisfaction of a need? This is the essence of commercialization.
Returning to the knowledge value chain (Fig. 1.2), it should be noted that this concept is valid for understanding not only the processes of commercialization of R&D results and technologies, but also the processes of involving any managerial and organizational decisions in the activities of commercial enterprises. For management decisions the main stages of commercialization remain in force: someone generates a solution, then it receives a confirmation of performance (laboratory stage), then it takes the form of a guide to action (instruction is a kind of prototype, a prototype of a future product), then this solution is implemented in specific departments where it is being studied its effectiveness in real conditions (analysis of a small series). If we are talking about simple replicated management solutions, then the last stage is also relevant: the selected and tested solution is “put into series”, that is, it is implemented in all departments of the company. For complex management technologies, implementation is limited to one or more divisions or branches.
To understand how commercialization processes should be managed, it is necessary to analyze in detail what, in fact, tasks are solved at each stage that make up commercialization, what is the logical relationship between these tasks and what are the roles of the main participants in this process.
Idea generation stage
At this stage, the commercialization project is initiated. The author of a new technical or management solution offers something that is potentially in demand on the market. This "something" can be either a product or process with new technical characteristics, or some organizational or legal modernization of an existing business.
In this course, we focus on projects for the commercialization of R&D results and technologies, i.e., first of all, on those innovative technologies that are based on new technical solutions. It is very important at the very first stage of the commercialization process to make a choice where to move in research. There are not so many options, or rather, only two.
It is possible to continue scientific research and look for ways to further develop the technical solution and optimize it with obtaining ever higher scientific and technical results. This, as we agreed earlier, is a scientific activity that has no direct relation to innovation.
The second option is to still initiate the processes of commercialization, i.e., the involvement of new knowledge in commercial circulation. To do this, you need to establish feedback with the market. The earlier this connection appears in the project (which can be implemented in different ways), the more effective the project itself will be. Only what is expected by the market can be brought to the market, which corresponds to the mood of potential buyers. There are many examples where truly breakthrough inventions were simply ahead of their time. In December 1845, a merchant from Edinburgh (Scotland) Robert William Thomson received a patent for a pneumatic tire. And pneumatic tires became really popular only to late XIX in. with the advent of the first automobiles. Today it is a multi-billion dollar industry.
A treasure trove of such examples is the history of Leonardo da Vinci. According to the materials of historical archives, the Master made an entry (described a certain device) in his diary between 1483 and 1486. Several centuries later, such a device was called a “parachute” (from the Greek para - against and the French chute - fall). The first parachute descents were made by the French - the engineer Veranzio (from the roof of a high tower in 1617) and the aeronaut Garneran (from a balloon in 1797). Interestingly, this idea was brought to its logical conclusion by Leonardo only by the Russian inventor Kotelnikov, who in 1911 created the first knapsack rescue parachute attached to the pilot's back. In HUV. humanity did not need an "anti-fall device". Today, parachutes are not only a means of salvation, but also an entire entertainment industry.
How to connect with the market? At a minimum, the project team needs to focus on market mechanisms for choosing optimal management decisions. Who should determine the future direction of improvement technical device? Is it only the author, the developer? Certainly not. Already at the stage of generating an idea, it is worth attracting marketers or at least people with entrepreneurial experience to the project.
Competition begins to appear already at this, initiative stage of the commercialization process. Already at this moment, you need to clearly understand that this is not about success in the scientific field, which you can be proud of, telling in detail about the path that you should follow in order to get similar results. If the goal is truly commercialization and profit making, then R&D results are a potential competitive advantage in the fight to attract new customers or retain old ones. This is exactly what will allow the business to defeat competitors and develop new markets. Leakage of information can cost not just a lot of money - it can bury a business that has not yet had time to be born.
Competitive struggle in the market of innovative products and technologies begins, as a rule, at the stage of idea generation. The competition of ideas and concepts is at least as fierce as the competition of goods and services, sometimes even tougher.
A well-known experiment conducted by Danish Product demonstrates a high degree of competition at the idea generation stage. In 1972, the company's management decided to carry out a large-scale project to search for new ideas and new partners. The Danish Technological Institute became the authorized executor of the project. The specialists of this institute developed the company's requirements for new proposals. Since 1977, a detailed audit of the higher educational institutions Denmark. The results of this long (until 1990) painstaking study were amazing. Of the 5,000 scientific results reviewed, only 350 (7 percent!) turned out to be truly original and did not have any signs of copyright infringement. All the remaining 93% of technologies were borrowed from each other to one degree or another. Of the 350 projects selected, only 94 advanced to the next level of selection as they met the company's main requirement - patentability. Of these, 30 proposals were brought to production and 15 were mass-produced for more than 5 years.
This proposal search project was subsequently repeated in other countries, and everywhere the ratio of considered and successful proposals was approximately the same.
The fact that most inventions are not commercialized should be taken for granted, not tied to the features or shortcomings of a particular technology. Clearly, there is some kind of depreciation in the technology market. They get cheaper because too many similar technologies are generated at the same time, urging potential buyers to pay attention to them. Ultimately, the fate of new technologies is determined by these buyers - investors who decide to bet on this proposal and build a business on its basis.
The example of Chester Carlson, who in 1937 tried with all his might to draw attention to his invention, is extremely indicative in this respect. He created the technology of electrophotography (or photocopying, which is more understandable to the layman). After C. Carlson received his patent in 1937, he applied to more than two dozen advanced companies at that time, such as IBM, RCA, Kodak. His device made it possible to obtain clear black-and-white copies of any documents and images. However, none of the companies began to seriously consider his proposal and did not allocate a single cent for the development of the production of such equipment, not recognizing the invention of C. Carlson as useful and “sellable”. Only seven years later, in 1944, did the Battle Development Corporation agree to provide the necessary funds, since one of its leading physicists was seriously interested in Carlson's technology.
The opposite example occurred with Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc. is a biotechnology company founded in 1991 by Harvey Berger, former leader R&D division of Centocor. Mission of Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc. was to develop new types of drugs based on the transduction effect (the effect of transferring genetic information inside the cell). The vast majority of stakeholders discussed how important this effect would be, what a special role its discovery could play in the treatment of complex diseases, but the effect itself was not well understood. However, thanks to timely commercialization with the participation of good experts in this subject area, Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc. was able to navigate the market in time and receive an investment of $ 46 million, at the stage of establishing a business - long before the transduction effect itself was studied and demonstrated in detail.
Given the current popularity of xerography, it is difficult to identify the reasons why it was so difficult for C. Carlson to find investors for his project, although he demonstrated a working sample of the device, while Harvey Berger founded the company when the transduction effect itself was not yet properly studied. Moreover, at one time the technology of photocopying was absolutely unique - there were no analogues in principle, however, there were a lot of alternative views and concepts related to solving the problem of transferring genetic information inside the cell, and nevertheless, Harvey Berger founded his company and was able to get multimillion investments.
Comparing these two examples will always be subjective. One of the explanations for the paradoxical nature of what happened can be found in the well-known expression “not invented by us” or “not invented here”.
“Not invented by us” - such an explanation is a phenomenon from the field of social psychology. A peculiar syndrome: ceteris paribus, someone else's proposal always seems worse than your own. This syndrome is inherent both to technical specialists who are ready to endlessly work on their own technology, moving further and further away from the solution, instead of paying attention to the fact that the problem has long been solved in other ways, and to managers who do not notice the proposals of partners and colleagues, since the initiative in this case, it does not come from them.
It also happens this way: some of the decision-makers on financing commercialization projects are of the opinion that the most important thing is the technical and functional characteristics of the future product, while others with the same authority believe that it is necessary first of all to navigate on the market situation and, most importantly, to offer the market exactly what is most in demand at the moment. Another reason for such a strong influence of subjective human factor- the so-called "herd feeling", actively exploited by professional stock players. Man by nature is accustomed to focus on the opinions of others. Everyone started selling - and I will, everyone is buying - and I'm buying. This "herding" allows competent brokers to earn billions on the stock exchange. When considering new technologies, the same psychological factor works: if it seemed to a person that public opinion indicates that this area of technology is unpromising, he most likely will not even delve into the essence of the proposal. However, it is possible that he came across only a dozen opinions of journalists who are not experts in the field under consideration, and professionals know that this technology is the future. Public opinion is an important factor, but, unfortunately, extremely unstable and unpredictable. You can remember how many conversations and public discussions there were about the harm to human health caused by mobile phones. However, several billion "tubes" have already been sold in the world. Entrepreneurs who once bet on mobile technology have become billionaires.
Growing stage
Recognizing a promising idea and finding its supporters and partners is just the start. The attraction of resources and new participants allows the commercialization process to move to the next stage. An idea (or new concept) requires unequivocal confirmation of feasibility. It is necessary to clearly and convincingly demonstrate that the idea is viable and can be the basis of a future sustainable business. In fact, this is the stage of creating a laboratory sample, when the idea takes the form of technology.
At this stage of the development of the project, the commercialization of the technology is determined, i.e., the potential for building a business based on it. If the participants of the project show the feasibility of the technology, and reasonably demonstrate the advantages of this technology over alternative ones, then the commercializability of the project will be confirmed.
Despite the fact that at the previous stage, supporters of the idea (concept) were found or even some funding was received, attracting new partners requires more and more skillful argumentation. One of the reasons for the problems that arise in assessing the commercializability of technologies is the fact that the technologies being promoted and scientific theories, underlying them, are often not fully understood and there is no single scientific opinion that would unequivocally support these approaches.
Let's consider an example illustrating this fact. Electric flow control was discovered and patented by Willis Winslow in the late 1940s. XX century, and the first mention of the possibility of such an effect occurred 100 years before. The effect of changing the hydraulic characteristics of liquids is that if you mix a dielectric liquid (for example, oil) with a crushed conductor (metal crumb), then this mixture becomes a gel when passed through electric current and behaves like a liquid in its absence. Moreover, the change in the characteristics of these mixtures, which today are called the term "smart fluid", occurs almost instantly (the transition time varies from one thousandth to one ten-thousandth of a second). Moreover, the greater the electrical voltage applied to the mixture, the less fluid it becomes.
Many applications of this effect suggested themselves from the very beginning. These are hydraulic shock absorbers, hydraulic drives and mechanisms, vices, couplings, valves, as well as, for example, fishing rods, portable antennas that remain flexible during transportation and can almost instantly acquire the necessary rigidity in operation, etc. None of these potential Applications of the technology were not successfully demonstrated until the 1990s, when, finally, a theoretical basis was developed and a mathematical apparatus was developed to describe the processes of regulating the fluidity of fluids under the action of an electric FIELD.
Today, this technology is successfully used in the automotive industry (shock absorbers, the characteristics of which can be changed at the touch of a button in the car), and in medicine (orthopedic prostheses with variable joint stiffness), etc. The actual commercial use of the technology has lagged behind by decades. The reason is that at the time when the project was supposed to move into the cultivation stage, the very principles on which the technology works were not fully understood. There was no adequate theoretical description of the essence of the development. Science, technology and society were not ready to accept this technology.
The main task at the stage of technology cultivation is to identify and analyze the market prospects of the technology, to determine the critical time during which it is necessary to prepare a workable sample of a new market product in order to properly materialize the technology in the form of a new product, a new market offer.
Demonstration stage
Successful completion of the stage of technology cultivation and substantiation of its potential commercializability logically lead to the next stage of commercialization - demonstration of the prototype of the market offer. In fact, at this stage it is necessary to move from a laboratory sample (which demonstrates only the technical feasibility of the idea) to a prototype. The prototype is the first approximation to the finished product, which can already be demonstrated to potential buyers.
At a Russian institute, for many years a group of scientists has been studying the behavior of heterogeneous media, in particular the dynamics of a flow consisting of a mixture of a carrier gas with a solid powder. As a result of long and painstaking research, it was found that if a stable flow of gas carrying a finely abrasive powder can be provided, it is possible to create a device for accurate cutting of hard materials. The technology, called "heterogeneous cutter", is very close to the well-known surface sandblasting technology, but differs from it in a certain scientific and technical content. It was demonstrated on a laboratory setup located in a large room full of various instrumentation, where an experimental stand was assembled. The demonstration made it possible to verify that this way cutting materials is in principle feasible. However, all potentially interested persons, seeing the experimental stand, which could not be imagined in isolation from the premises, did not even want to talk about any investment or partnership, since there was no market offer yet. The so-called prototype was required.
Such a sample should fully answer most of the questions of future buyers. Regarding the “heterogeneous cutter”, one could say that it should be a kind of complete device in a stand-alone case, having a certain user interface displayed on the front panel, not tied to any external devices or highways, with the exception of power supply and, perhaps, , a central line with compressed air, if this device is presented in the format of an industrial pneumatic tool. In this form, it could be demonstrated not only to fellow scientists, but also to future buyers - private craftsmen or craftsmen and technologists of industrial enterprises.
When the buyer sees the prototype of the future product, he can already evaluate this offer in terms of his needs and preferences. It is one thing to believe that a certain installation can be “folded” into a portable unit, and another thing is to see the finished installation, evaluate its dimensions, weight, ease of transportation and use.
Demonstration prototypes It also allows you to establish feedback with customers, which is important. The device may not be mobile enough, or not powerful enough, or too noisy for certain operating conditions. Such information can only be obtained from future users of the product or service.
Demonstration of new products must necessarily be focused on the current state of related technologies and human expectations. The following examples are very illustrative. Videophone - a telephone combined with a video camera and monitor. Now you will not surprise anyone with a videoconferencing system, but many do not know that the concept of a videophone was proposed by AT&T back in the mid-60s. last century. The prototypes were a rather bulky device, which, in addition to providing a conventional telephone connection, made it possible to transmit a still black-and-white image of the interlocutor. More was impossible due to the insufficient capacity of the then telephone lines. With the advent of color imaging systems, this barrier has only increased. Even when image compression systems appeared in the world, videophones still transmitted only a still image, at best allowing video to be transmitted at a speed of 10 frames per second, which is completely insufficient for full-fledged video communication. Compact, fast and reliable video cameras and suitable monitors appeared much later, in the late 80s. The prototype videophone was 20 years ahead of its time.
Another obstacle, which to this day limits the widespread use of videophones in everyday life, remains a purely psychological aspect. Most potential users want to see the interlocutor, but do not want to be seen themselves. Therefore, video communication remains the lot of professional video conferencing, where the image is an additional channel for transmitting important information, and not just an additional function of the phone.
Second example. Early 1970s. Praveen Chaudhari, VP of Science at IBM, invented high-speed streaming data storage technology using a solid-state laser. Rewritable magneto-optical discs using the effects of ferromagnetism won recognition much later, in the early 1990s. In the 1970s this technology was not so in demand: solid-state lasers were still too expensive, there was no need to store and quickly access large amounts of information, and the proven and affordable technology of magnetic tape drives was widely used to store archives.
Solved and successfully solved by the inventors of magneto-optics, the problem of increasing the signal-to-noise ratio outpaced the advent of affordable solid-state lasers. And the market demand for compact, rewritable and capacious storage media arose only with the advent of personal computers, and it's funny that it was IBM that considered the development of personal computers an unpromising direction.
A compromise between the two poles - a fundamentally new functionality of the technology and current market expectations - is among a huge number of solutions, each of which has its own costs and risks. In some cases, it is worth diving into additional research that will allow the development of the technology to move a little further than originally planned, in others it is worth urgently looking for a compromise at the level of the market offer, perhaps simplifying the offer at the expense of functionality, because at the moment the market is simply not ready. to something more.
Promotion stage
Very few inventions, ideas and technologies, no matter how well and deeply developed and demonstrated, are automatically accepted by the market and get their “deserved” place on it. It is not that simple.
Analyzing the stories of unsuccessful commercialization projects, several researchers at once received approximately similar data. For about 75% of these projects, it becomes clear that they are unsuccessful only after creating prototypes and trying to sell small series of goods. About 40% of the remaining projects reach the most expensive stage - the stage of introducing new products to the market, and fail at this, the most costly stage from a financial point of view.
The reason for the failure of these projects lies in the field of market relations. Approximately a quarter of all new goods and services disappear from the market due to the emergence of unpredictable market factors. They made a mistake in the sales forecast, did not take into account consumer preferences, cheaper substitute products appeared, more advanced technical solutions were introduced, etc. All this is almost impossible to foresee. Bringing any new product to the market is a high-risk project, an event with a high degree of market uncertainty.
No matter how deeply managers and marketers analyze the market conditions during product development, it is almost impossible to predict the reaction of consumers to the appearance of a new product. Technological novelties have the problem of all new consumer concepts - they are forced to create a new, previously non-existent market.
Suffice it to recall the example of the zipper. People got along just fine without zippers: traditional buttons have been doing their job for more than one century. It took more than 20 (!) years for those who promoted zippers to the market to form a public acceptance of a new type of fastener. Moreover, “zippers” entered the market not due to a real need for such fasteners against the background of the discrediting of ordinary buttons, but only on the wave of the fashion industry and some new public ideas about modern clothing.
There are two main directions in the promotion of new products to the market. First, emphasis should be placed on persuading society to accept the novelty. It is necessary to work with public institutions, professional communities, and the media. New proposals should become fashionable and popular. Creating special free centers where you can test a new product, distributing new products free of charge to professional users in order to get feedback and recommendations, creating training units that will train new users are just a few obvious ways to gain public recognition.
Secondly, you should take into account the consumption infrastructure of your new product offering, taking into account the technical development of the region, the culture of consumption of this type of goods. It makes no sense to promote new types of gas heaters in a non-gasified village. Not only should individual consumers themselves be ready for consumption, but the overall level of technical and consumer culture should be sufficiently high.
The existing infrastructure protects aging technologies to a certain extent. Let's remember how "tight" the distribution of home DVD-players was at first in Russia. All counters were littered with original and counterfeit video cassettes, and DVDs, firstly, were quite expensive and, secondly, finding original discs, especially with translation into Russian, was a whole problem. When the video distribution infrastructure switched, with the help of "pirates", from videocassettes to DVDs, the DVD player market literally perked up. It's funny that different countries went in slightly different ways. Soviet citizens, and subsequently Russians, practically did not find the so-called "video CDs". We had video cassette recorders, and after them DVD players immediately conquered the market. In a number of countries there was practically no era of video cassettes (for example, in some countries of Southeast Asia). There, the video industry came immediately with video CDs, bypassing the era of magnetic video recording. And the era of DVDs has come to replace CDs.
It often takes a huge effort to make adjustments to established consumer preferences. First of all, these efforts should be justified by the potential of future sales of new equipment. It is necessary to justify the volume of the future market so that it becomes possible to attract additional resources to change the situation in the traditional market. Justification of future sales is based on identifying market needs and consumer expectations. The problem is that the expectation and need itself can only exist if the appropriate infrastructure is in place. Breaking this vicious circle and solving the "egg and chicken" problem is often possible only by attracting resources that exceed all previous costs for the development of the technology itself.
Stage of stability
The goal of any commercialization is to generate sustainable cash flows based on the application of knowledge and research results. You need to be sure that the business built on new knowledge, firstly, will last for a long time; secondly, it will occupy a significant or tangible market share; thirdly, it will give rise to a new business in the long term.
In today's consumer society, the emphasis in a new business should be on building a system of regular consumption of your new product or new service. An example with household inkjet printers is extremely indicative. It's no secret that a color inkjet printer with fairly good consumer characteristics, capable of printing an image with almost photographic quality, is not so expensive. One might even say cheap compared to the cost of a new set of replacement cartridges for it. Or is it the cartridges are expensive compared to the cost of the unit itself? But this is not so important. The manufacturer may even give you a printer as a gift, provided that you later buy replacement cartridges for it. Thus, the manufacturer makes the main turnover on the sale of not the printer itself, but components and operating (consumables) materials.
A modern cinema provides its visitors with the service of watching new movies, along the way selling popcorn and drinks to customers. All modern cinemas have more food and drink revenue than ticket sales. This is fine. This is a sustainable, well-thought-out business.
1.4. Creating additional value. Increase in the cost of innovation in the process of commercialization
In the previous paragraph, the sequence of stages of commercialization of a certain R&D result was considered from the emergence of an idea for a new product to building a sustainable business. Obviously, as we move through the listed stages, capital investments in the project grow, the number of people involved in it grows, and risks decrease. All these factors indicate that the attractiveness of the project increases as it approaches the final, which means that, relatively speaking, it becomes more expensive. What is the nature of the increase in the cost of the project, what ultimately becomes more expensive?
Such unique knowledge is formed at each stage of commercialization. When moving from an idea to a laboratory model, knowledge acquires an additional value. Knowing how a laboratory setup works, how to demonstrate the feasibility of a new technology, all cost money. At the moment of this transition, knowledge from the individual (the idea always originates in the head of one person) passes into the category of the collective. As a rule, laboratory installations are already created by a group of specialists. Of course, there are still lone inventors today, but they are minuscule in comparison with the teams of research centers that generate new knowledge in a conveyor mode.
The transition from the nurture stage to the demonstration stage, i.e. the construction of a prototype, also adds additional cost to the project. A prototype can already be demonstrated to future users, and changes are promptly made to it based on the results of working with users. All this information in the form of reports (formalized knowledge) and staff experience (non-formalized knowledge) makes the project even more expensive. Projects sold at this stage are already estimated at times and tens of times more expensive than at the stage of an idea or a laboratory sample.
The promotion stage is characterized by the first sales. Here, knowledge from the technical category gets an increase in the form of commercial knowledge. The project team no longer only knows what it sells, but also how to sell, to whom and at what price. This knowledge is essential. Without it, the transition to mass production and sustainable business is impossible. Experience in selling a small batch of products can save the project team from serious mistakes when moving on to justify batch production. Knowledge from the collective or group goes into the category of organizational. An organization that has experience in selling products already acquires value in itself.
After the first trial batches of products are sold, the team prepares a serial production case with the goal of moving to a sustainable business. When such a rationale is prepared, the company (or project) adds up in price again. It is clear that knowing how to build a stable modern business is very expensive, about two orders of magnitude more expensive than a business at the prototype stage would cost.
Model 1:10:100
So, the promotion of the commercialization project entails an increase in the cost of knowledge. At the same time, the attraction of resources to the project is growing. Traditionally, there are three characteristic milestones when it is necessary to attract significant resources to the project. These are the transitions from the idea stage to the laboratory sample, from the laboratory sample to the prototype and from the prototype through sales of a small series to the rationale for serial production.
If we take as a benchmark, as a conventional unit, the amount of resources required to create a laboratory prototype based on a technical idea, then the cost of moving to the next stage of the demonstration (i.e., the amount of relevant resources required to create a prototype) will be about 10 times more. These are the costs of taking into account the shortcomings of the technology, and the development of design, and the implementation of layout solutions, and the development of ergonomics.
The further development of the project - the transition from a prototype and sales of a small series to the justification of mass production - requires investments that can be estimated at about 100 conventional units.
One can see a characteristic proportion, which is repeated from year to year in the vast majority of commercialization projects - 1:10:100. This ratio well illustrates the financial relationship of partners in the framework of the project. The share of the author of the technology is well traced, which steadily falls as the project progresses. This is obvious, because as the project develops, more and more not technical, but commercial specialists are included in the work. Thus, it is clear that the objective share of the author, if he does not participate in the project in any other way than as a carrier of the technical concept, and does not attract additional resources to the project, is 7 times the cost of a future stable business. However, it is worth remembering that as the project and business develop, the absolute income of the author and other participants grows and 1/111 of a stable business will most likely cost much more than the amount for which the author could sell a “bare idea”.
Enthusiasm-time and cost-time curves
On fig. 1.3 is an example that characterizes a high degree of chaotic mood in the team in the process of project implementation. This curve along the time axis goes through all stages sequentially - from generating an idea to creating a relatively stable business. The high degree of collective anxiety reflects the high volatility of the technology business in its infancy. This illustration, of course, is of a qualitative nature, the axes do not have any scales and scales.
Rice. 1.3. Curve "enthusiasm - time
If you are a project manager for the commercialization of an R&D result or technology, you need to keep in mind that such jumps in the interest of the staff have the most negative impact on its performance and ultimately may affect the overall results of operations.
To somehow compensate for the uncertainty of the team, you can use various methods and ways. The most common is the distribution of part of the shares or shares in a small company among key employees, those on whose actions (or inaction) the fate of the entire project depends. Such specialists, as a rule, form the backbone of a small business team and develop the business together from the moment it is founded. However, it should be borne in mind that in the process of developing the project, you will need more and more qualified employees, who will also have to be motivated somehow. Here, a situation is possible that is best described by the expression "time bomb" - when the "old" employees are co-owners of the business and new employees are attracted to help them, who are not promised a share in future income. If these employees are at the same level of authority, if the company encounters difficulties, there may be problems with motivation (“they, as co-owners, work for future income and can be patient, but I have to feed my family”).
It should be remembered that all people are different, everyone has their own values and their own system of priorities, as well as their own limit of patience. Look carefully at fig. 1.3 - any failure can lead to the departure of a key employee due to the loss of interest in the project. As you move to the right, success will depend less and less on personal enthusiasm - the company will acquire experience, regulations, instructions. There will be less and less irreplaceable specialists – “bearers of unique knowledge”.
On fig. 1.4 shows possible qualitative scenarios for changing the cost of a new technology and a small company whose business is based on this technology. Curve 1 reflects the ideal variant. For example, this is how the story of the development of the Sony Walkman project developed: an idea born in the head of one employee raised a wave of enthusiasm in the company, and this project was quickly turned into a whole line of highly profitable corporate activities. The opposite example is curve 3. For example, Sony Corporation, which has invested a lot of money in the development and promotion of a mini-compact disc, the so-called MiniDisk. The same fate befell the joint development of Sony and Philips corporations - a digital audio cassette. Some technologies have time to “light up” on the market (significant investments are obvious
in advertising, in promotion), but very soon they are forgotten. Most likely, the fate of curve 3 awaits such modern products and solutions as WAP technology, which turned out to be virtually unclaimed with the advent of "regular" Internet browsers in mobile phones with support for more advanced and convenient GPRS technology. Here it is important to separate “dead-end” technologies, which for some reason did not have time to conquer the planned market volumes, and technologies that successfully completed their mission and simply gave way to new products. These include, for example, punched cards and then magnetic floppy disks, video cassettes in the YHS format.
Rice. 1.5. Change in business value
1 – ideal project; 2 – typical project; 3 – unsuccessful project
But in reality, projects are always far from extremes. Most of the projects that develop and eventually achieve success follow curve 2. Yes, there are ups and downs, but the main thing is to strive for results. In fact, curve 2 reflects the stochastic nature of the innovation market; this curve is quite adequately combined with Fig. 1.4. We can say that in mathematical terms, these dependencies are in the nature of "strongly dependent on the initial conditions", i.e., their behavior is always ambiguous and can radically change under the influence of an insignificant, at first glance, factor.
1.5. Innovation: classic mistakes and how to fix them
Each wave of innovative activity crashed on the same stones. Most of the problems are generated by the clash of two mutually exclusive desires - to make a vital profit at the moment from an already existing business and to develop new ideas that are likely to determine the future of the company.
CEOs say they need more and more innovation and then ask, “Who else is doing this?” They say they are looking for new ideas, but they are ready to fire anyone who comes to them with these ideas. Corporations, with some notable exceptions like Intel and Reuters, fail to understand that new divisions created to develop innovative products rarely benefit the core business.
Strategy Mistakes: The bar is too high, the scope is too narrow
Every leader dreams of an innovative hit. But in the pursuit of sensation, managers sometimes reject ideas that seem too modest at first glance, and employees who are not involved in large projects feel like second-class people.
Time, the magazine division of Time Warner, was hesitant to launch new titles because management set the bar too high: if you were to invest in something like People or Sports Illustrated. Until 1992, when Don Logan took over, there were almost no new magazines. After Logan proposed a new innovation strategy, the division created (or bought) about 100 magazines, multiplying its revenues many times over. Although not every new product was greeted with enthusiasm by the market, Time employees learned what successful innovators know: to achieve great success, one must not be afraid to take risks and suffer defeats.
Another one common mistake– short circuit on products. New ideas can be found in the most different areas activities in both production and marketing. For example, Ocean Spray, which produced cranberry juice, made a bet on new packaging - it bought the exclusive right to sell fruit drinks in the US market in Tetra Cancer packages for a year and a half and overtook the largest American juice suppliers (including P&G and Coca-Cola).
Looking around and imitating successful competitors on the principle of "we too", the company begins to scatter its innovative energy on insignificant projects started only for the sake of immediate profit, which ultimately leads to high costs. Not trying to win small, but frequent victories, the company misses many tempting opportunities. It's no better if she overdoes it with non-essential projects - when new ideas are only modest variations on an existing product, this leads to quantitative rather than qualitative growth, which weakens the brand and misleads customers.
Organizational errors: too tight management
Another type of classic error is related to the control system. Companies strive to apply the same levers to innovative projects as they do to mature businesses: planning, budgeting, reporting - and thereby stifle them. Uncertainty is an inherent feature of innovation activity. Upstart Ocean Spray was able to run across the road to major US manufacturers because they had funds allocated for a year in advance and could not take a single step to the side after the package was approved.
Measuring performance against long-standing metrics is another danger to innovation. Mature companies don't just need plans, they need leaders to stick to those plans. Employees here are usually paid for the exact execution of rigidly defined tasks, and it is considered bad form to make changes to fit the circumstances.
Structural errors: little in common, many differences
In order to avoid a clash of corporate cultures and a conflict of priorities, it is necessary to pursue a policy of peaceful coexistence, competently building relationships between the two structures. In this regard, General Motors made a classic mistake when it founded Saturn, an autonomous company for the production of low-cost compact cars. The Saturn didn't obey GM rules for a while. The new team was given full scope for creativity in the areas of development, production, marketing, sales and customer service in the expectation that GM would then adopt the best ideas of the new company. But instead, Saturn, after its successful launch, was introduced into GM, and many innovative solutions remained on paper.
The fact is that the experimental and basic structures have little in common. Often radical solutions do not fit into existing directions or innovators propose to use available resources in completely unexpected ways. If potential innovations require knowledge or technologies from other industries, then the chance that companies will miss or ruin innovations increases. The leaders of the main organization may not grasp the essence of the new idea and be afraid of it.
Even if a new venture is launched within an existing business, the clash of corporate cultures takes on the character of a class struggle, as long as there are two classes of corporate citizens - those who "play the fool and enjoy life" and those who "work hard." Innovators - employees of a specially created unit - receive the status of creators of the future. They are free from rules, they do not have to think about profits, they can be amused by ideas that have not yet justified themselves. And their colleagues are required to obey the rules and earn money for the company.
Personnel errors: poor management, poor awareness
Underestimation of the human factor and insufficient attention to it is also from the category common mistakes. Very often, top managers entrust the fate of innovation not to the best leaders, but to the best technical specialists. This often misses the opportunity to rally people psychologically, which is necessary to turn "raw" ideas into useful innovations.
Groups selected without taking into account the factor of compatibility of people experience a variety of difficulties. It takes time for team members to learn to trust each other and work together, and only in such an atmosphere do great insights happen.
If developers want their ideas to be recognized, they can't shut themselves up. It is necessary to seek and rally allies who would speak from their positions, defend them at management meetings, sponsor innovations at different stages of “growth”. In order for an idea to be well received, it is necessary to prepare the ground for this, which means that innovators need to explain in clear words to everyone what is its novelty. If we are talking about "disruptive" innovation, then we need to mitigate the threat, to assure potential opponents that the novelty does not cancel the right to exist of old products or technologies. It happens that techies, instead of enlightening their listeners, only manage to confuse everyone's heads. And then they lose support: after all, saying “no” is always easier than saying “yes”. Groups that shroud their work in secrecy and present their ideas to the public as ready-made are met with unexpected objections, and it happens that the work on the project ends there.
History knows examples of successful innovations. Here four ways to win.
strategic measures, expand your search, zoom in. Companies can develop an innovation strategy that will support them at the three levels of the innovation pyramid. At the top are several large projects that the company is betting on. They set the direction for future development and receive the lion's share of funding. Next is a set of promising medium-sized ideas, they are developed by teams created for this purpose. And finally, a wide range of ideas and innovations that have not yet been developed, involving the gradual improvement of products. Impulses spread along the pyramid from top to bottom, but sometimes from bottom to top, because it happens that big innovations start with little things.
The Innovation Pyramid will help top managers better evaluate current developments, make adjustments if ideas prove promising and require further development, and see more clearly what is happening at all three levels. A culture of innovation develops when everyone has a voice. While select teams are working on big projects, and temporary teams are nurturing medium-sized ideas, the rest of the company is also contributing ideas to the corporate piggy bank.
Anyone can be an innovator and initiator of a project. In July 2006, IBM held a three-day Internet forum InnovationJa, during which about 140,000 employees and customers from 104 countries made about 37,000 proposals. As a result, IBM received a huge amount of innovative raw materials.
organizational measures, make planning and control more flexible. One way to ensure that innovation can flourish without compromising approved plans and budgets is to keep a reserve for contingencies. In this case, innovators will not have to shelve promising ideas and wait for the next budgeting session, or go with outstretched hands to the "big" management fixated on current profits and revenues.
Innovative projects need special models of financing and cooperation with partners, but they still need to be exempted from some corporate rules. For example, innovation can be developed by rapidly manufacturing prototypes and checking their pros and cons with a series of blitz tests; this means that applications for additional funding will appear faster than in the parent company.
structural measures, establish cooperation between the main company and the new division. It is necessary to establish closer contacts between the participants of innovative projects and all other employees. It is important that the innovators and leaders of the parent company meet regularly and have fruitful conversations. Maintaining external relations should be one of the responsibilities of innovation groups, but the "chief" leaders should also be encouraged to cooperate so that between them and the innovators not only there is no friction and antagonism, but, on the contrary, mutual respect is strengthened. Participants of the working meetings should exchange knowledge, talk about how to prevent the absorption of old products by new ones or form separate areas of activity as efficiently as possible based on the developments of the innovation department.
Close interaction is facilitated by the flexible structure of the organization, in which representatives of different departments work together to find solutions to problems. Multidisciplinary retailer Williams-Sonoma's success in e-commerce is because its web innovators figured out how to incorporate the interests of the rest of the company into their designs. CEO Howard Lester thought from the start that Internet businesses that exist on their own were ridiculous. Williams-Sonoma opened an online gift shop in June 1999 and began selling online in November. kitchen furniture and related products, supporting their "offline" business. After the pilot projects proved successful, an e-commerce division was set up and housed in a separate building. But the new division did not compete with the old departments, but figured out how to improve and expand their work. To strengthen contacts with the entire company, the division undertook to teach the rest of the employees the tricks of the Internet for free.
personnel measures, choose leaders and encourage collaboration. Companies that value and develop the organizational skills of their employees are more likely to create outstanding innovations. Williams-Sonoma quickly excelled in e-commerce, in part because of its focus on people. Shelley Nandkeoljar, the first leader of the Internet commerce group, was not only considered the best specialist- He was a born leader. He understood well the importance of good relationships and therefore invited employees from different departments to join his team so that they could keep in touch with former colleagues; in addition, he hired people from the outside, who knew how to do what their own did not know how. Nendkeoljar organized advisory councils from different departments, and these councils worked closely with his group. He came up with the position of integrator, who established communication between working groups.
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The following excerpt from the book Innovative business. Formation of commercialization models for promising developments (N. V. Nechaeva, 2011) provided by our book partner -
Belai Olga Sergeevna
Mukhametzyanova Dilyara Damirovna, Assistant Professor, Department of Expertise and Real Estate Management, Kazan State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Russia
Participants in the innovation commercialization process
The development of innovations is a costly and lengthy process with a high level of risk, since every innovation is the result of intellectual activity. In the process of commercialization of innovations, the following participants can be distinguished:
1. Large and multinational companies that operate in international markets. With the help of innovative products, new markets are conquered and the activities of enterprises are improved in general. This group of participants is characterized by innovations in science-intensive industries involved in the production of software products, systems for processing, storing and distributing information, etc. (Saifullina, 2010).
2. Venture funds and companies are interested in activities both in the domestic market of the country and in international markets. The main role of innovation is the constant increase in profits (Prokofiev, 2013 a) . Preference is given to innovations in rapidly developing industries that are able to bring the highest profit.
3. Medium-sized companies operate in the domestic market of the country. Innovations serve as a way to increase the level of competitiveness among similar Russian and foreign manufacturers. Members of this group prefer innovations that have already successfully passed the stage of pilot production, and the demand for them is confirmed by marketing research.
4. Private investors and investment companies use innovations as a means to conquer new market segments, they operate mainly in the domestic market of the country. This group is focused on innovations that require moderate financial costs (which is associated with high risks of project unprofitability) and with short payback periods.
5. Investment banks, operating primarily in international markets, seek to increase their profits through innovation. Innovations of any actively developing sphere of the economy, which are capable of generating high incomes, are interesting.
6. Intermediary companies (consulting and innovation centers) that provide consulting services to various participants in the innovation process, legal or to promote the product to the market.
Innovation commercialization procedure
The creation of innovation is the end result of any innovation process, but it is important to start the process of commercialization even before the end of development. (Primak, 2013). The commercialization process can be represented in four stages.
At the first stage, a project is searched in accordance with the criteria set by the subjects of commercialization, the project is examined in terms of the possibility of its commercialization (Rakhmatullina, 2010). The society's need for an innovative product, demand from end users in a certain segment, development potential, project economic efficiency indicators (payback period, NPV, IRR ), efficiency of internal use. Based on the conducted research, innovations are selected (Ustinova, 2013).
Since only a small part of innovative enterprises has the necessary amount of own funds for financing, the second stage is characterized by the search for investments to introduce an innovative product. (Krygina, 2014).
The third stage is the most important, since it is here that the distribution and legal consolidation of intellectual property rights takes place. In the absence of registration of rights provided for by law, the innovation can be freely copied or registered by other persons. The importance of the distribution and consolidation of rights is also explained by the fact that, in addition to the developer, other entities also take part in the commercialization process: private or public investors, venture funds, business angels, and credit institutions. Taking into account the interests of each of the participants, securing rights to the result of intellectual activity is the only possible mechanism for introducing innovative products into the real industrial sector.
The fourth stage of commercialization includes the actual introduction of innovation into production, possible further adjustments and improvements. Thus, the process of commercialization is completed, a new product appears on the market, all participants begin to make a profit along the reverse chain from manufacturing enterprises to developers.
Of particular importance is the choice of commercialization method, there are three main ones:
1. Independent launch of the product on the market and the passage of all the above stages of commercialization. As a result, profit can be made by leasing innovative equipment or providing engineering services if innovations are related to the modernization of production.
2. The assignment of part of the rights to innovation is the sale of a license, which allows you to receive a stable profit in the form of royalties, it is also possible to promote an innovative product at the expense of the licensee.
3. Full transfer of rights to innovation. This commercialization option provides for the sale of all rights to an innovative product, which allows you to receive a significant lump-sum income, however, after the sale, the enterprise needs to change the scope of activity, since it no longer has rights to the result of intellectual activity (Nizamova, Raimjanova, 2013) .
Problems in the commercialization of innovations
To date, the process of commercialization of innovations is facing a significant number of difficulties that impede the strengthening of commercialization, which include:
1. unreasonable policies in the field of sales, purchases and the use of innovative technologies;
2. identification and selection of innovations from the numerous options that make up the essence of the project;
3. legal support;
4. assessment of the significance of innovations for the reproduction of new technologies and materials, for their subsequent commercialization;
5. confidentiality of innovations;
6. implementation of innovative products not only within the country, but also abroad;
7. ensuring the desired results of enterprises and creators of innovations with subsequent commercial and industrial implementation;
8. financial support;
9. organizational support ( Prokofiev, 2013a) .
When releasing a finished product to the open market, close attention is needed during the first two years, constant monitoring will allow you to identify and correct all inaccuracies in time. The main indicator of this monitoring is the fulfillment of sales volumes, rapid distribution among potential buyers, which, as a result, helps to take prompt action to reduce the risk of product failure to pay off. The main problems leading to commercial failure should be divided into internal and external. External causes include the causes arising from the consumer's misperception of the final product. (Romanova, Mironova, Ilyina, 2012). As the main factor, it is worth highlighting the lack of a distinctive characteristic from the product already on the market; a new product may not meet the needs of consumers. There is also a danger in choosing the wrong development strategy, which can be determined by a consumer survey. As internal reasons, it is worth highlighting:
1. Poor management, characterized by insufficient knowledge of the market, budget control, the use of risky strategies.
2. Lack of interest from managers. Basically, this characteristic is based on the lack of interest of managers in introducing a new product to the market. Many managers believe that it is not worth spending resources on innovations with a stable income from an existing assortment.(Ustinova, 2013). Also, one of the weak indicators in this area is the achievement of only short-term profits.(Prokofiev, 2013 b) .
3. Slow pace of innovation. Today, in the conditions of daily technological development, the life cycle of a product is reduced. Delays in bringing a new product to market increase the cost of development. There is also a danger in the introduction of this or a similar innovative product on the market by another enterprise.
4. Non-systematic approach to the development of a new product. The basis of any innovative enterprise is the evaluation and implementation of a new product. Small firms keep in touch with customers to further study their needs when creating a new product. Naturally, as companies grow, ties with consumers weaken, which entails poor market research.
5. Control and management in the development of a new product. Large enterprises, as a rule, are fragmented. Departments for production, sales, analysis, production report to different managers, as a result, each department sets itself the goals that are necessary not only within the entire organization, but also within each department. As a result, there is a weak exchange of information, separation of the interests of departments. In this regard, in many large companies, innovative projects are closed without having time to be realized.
Conclusion
In a modern economy, the constant growth of competition in world markets leads to the need to introduce innovative products. Companies apply new tools and technologies to ensure the production of new goods and services. The key to the prosperity of innovative goods and services, both in the Russian and foreign markets, lies in the commercialization of products. Commercialization as the main element of the introduction of innovative products and their control acts at all stages life cycle project.
In the conditions of a planned-directive economy, the problem of commercialization was absent, while in a market economy it came to the fore. The basis for the successful development of commercialization in Russia is the improvement of the experience of a number of countries. Only a part of small enterprises involved in the development and introduction of innovative products to the market is able to develop and make a profit in an aggressive commercial environment, while maintaining independence and copyright for innovative activities.
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The success of a firm depends largely on its ability to establish and defend its market advantage, which affects its ability to generate new scientific and technological advances. The process of commercialization of innovations differs depending on the industry, in some, for example, innovation depends more on scientific breakthroughs, in others on the product and development of the innovation process.
Public policies to promote and commercialize innovation can be more effective when the changing conditions that lead to success across industries are recognized, and can remove many of the barriers firms face in the innovation stages, from inception to maturity.
Innovation requires inventions to be put into practice so that new products, processes and services are designed, manufactured and adopted by users.
There is no universal model that accurately depicts the process of innovation, because innovations are generated differently in different industries and respond to different needs market. For example, innovation is closely related to scientific discovery and follows a linear path from production to marketing, but there is a circumstance where firms start building production facilities while a product is being tested. Innovation can be highly centralized with a few manufacturers who act as integrators of components from a wide range of suppliers, product cycles that are decades long, where manufacturers work closely with users to determine product specifications and costs.
The nature of markets places different constraints on the innovation process, but science, technology and innovation are linked in different ways across industries. These observations indicate that innovators take many different paths through the innovation process, and that attempts to promote innovation and commercialize new technologies must differ in form.
Government innovation policy is based on a linear innovation model, in its simplest form, this model assumes that innovation begins with new scientific research, continues sequentially through the stages of product development, production, marketing, culminating in the successful sale of a new product, process or service.
Thus, the linear model assumes that the way to support leadership in the markets of high-tech goods is also to support leadership in basic scientific research. Despite the widespread use of the linear model, it has several disadvantages that limit its application. Science plays an important role throughout the innovation process by providing information that identifies solutions to problems in the design, manufacture, or other step of the innovation process.
Innovation is typically an iterative process in which designs must be continually tested, evaluated, and redesigned before being invented. Innovation is a process of trial and error, finding workable solutions to known or perceived market needs.
Science and technology are best viewed as two parallel streams of accumulated knowledge that have many interdependencies and cross-relationships and whose internal connections much stronger. As a result, technological progress does not necessarily have to depend on scientific and technological progress, technology itself often dictates its own development path, just as science often considers how to operate within various paradigms, how to determine actual problems and approaches to their solution.
Technologies work on a set of procedures, the definition of the corresponding problems, and the details of the specific knowledge associated with solving them. Each technological paradigm defines its own concept of progress based on its specific technological and economic trade-offs.
The technological trajectory is the direction of progress within the technological paradigm. Technological knowledge often precedes scientific knowledge and signal a profitable line of research.
Commercialization is an attempt to profit from innovation by incorporating new technologies into products, processes and services for their further implementation in the market. Solutions for the commercialization of new technologies are made by individual firms, closely related to the features innovation system in which the firm operates. Manufacturers should assess the likelihood of securing funding from internal and external sources, their ability to develop or access manufacturing equipment, and consumables and the size of potential markets. Without the right infrastructure to support their efforts, firms cannot be sure of returning their investment and beating their competitors.
Because knowledge transfer is a process by which firms learn from each other.
An integral part of knowledge is the transfer of technology, which means that the technology in question must be recreated in all its complexity and ambiguity. The purpose of technology transfer is to commercialize this knowledge - technology and thereby bring it to the market. Commercialization is considered the last stage in the development of a new product.
In order to get a more detailed analysis at the stage of commercialization, we propose to consider the scheme of the main steps towards commercialization (Fig. 1).
The structural-functional model and the research directly carried out in the future should be in constant reflexive interaction with each other. The role of certain factors and the interrelationships between them may undergo changes, the factors themselves may disappear, and new ones, with new connections, may appear instead. In other words, the structural-functional model will take its final form only at the stage of interpreting all the collected data. At the same time, the concept itself, remaining unchanged, like the skeleton of the entire model, will not allow deviating from the goal and going beyond the scope of the study. Therefore, in the context of this work, we are talking about the primary model, which will provide initial approaches to the study.
When starting to develop factors, it is important to consider the following requirements:
there should not be too many factors, otherwise the model will turn out to be excessively complex;
the number of factors should be sufficient so as not to miss the most important issues of the problem field, necessary for the subsequent development of hypotheses,
they should not conflict with the general concept,
factors must be mutually linked.
conjuncture.
There can be many terms of the conjuncture. However, only those of them that may be directly related to small business in general and to innovative entrepreneurship in particular are of interest.
Demand factors:
private sector demand
demand from the government corporations.
Investment activity:
shareholding conditions,
interest rates.
Rates (taxation, excises, customs tariffs, fees, etc.) and the dynamics of their change.
Sanctions against the transfer of foreign technology to the territory of the Russian Federation.
Import substitution.
Entrepreneurial Confidence Index.
sociocultural factors.
The whole complex set of socio-cultural factors form such an informal institution as the national economic mentality, the main elements of which are:
consumption stereotypes,
norms and patterns of interaction,
organizational forms,
value-motivational attitude to work and wealth,
degree of susceptibility to foreign experience.
On an intuitive level, in general, it is clear what is at stake. However, to formalize and explore such a subject in practice seems to be a very difficult task today. Modern science has developed a number of approaches to the study of the sociocultural characteristics of certain peoples. Such approaches today, of course, are far from perfect, but their application allows us to highlight some patterns of differences in national mentalities, to explain with their help how successful the processes of economic transformation are in a particular country.
Among the main approaches, such a method of measuring sociocultural characteristics as the seven-index model of Fons Trompenaars, which offers the following polarities, has been recognized and is used in practice:
universalism - particularism,
specificity - diffuseness,
individualism - communitarianism,
achieved - predetermined,
sequence - synchronicity,
external control - internal control (me and the environment),
affectivity - neutrality.
One of the attempts to classify cultures based on a complex system of indicators that affect business behavior belongs to R. Lewis, who distinguishes three types of cultures: monoactive, polyactive, reactive cultures.
To date, the Geert Hofstede method has received the greatest recognition, which is taken as the basis of the approach in this work (Appendix 2). This technique is based on six basic polarities. The combination of their poles in various proportions gives rise to complex, more complex socio-cultural characteristics.
When constructing a structural-functional model for studying the problems of commercialization of university R&D, it is proposed to develop one simple component of the “sociocultural factors” layer and five complex ones (presumably components of the basic ones).
Respect for the institution of property rights (including state rights) is a complex characteristic.
The degree of uncertainty avoidance is a simple characteristic.
Negotiability is a complex characteristic.
Inertia, as a factor blocking changes, is a complex characteristic.
Legal susceptibility is a complex component, which in turn also consists of complex characteristics, such as:
level of understanding of the law,
ability to quickly adapt to changes in legislation,
degree of compliance with the law.
The primacy of the beauty of an idea over its market demand (science for the sake of science).
Let us dwell on them in more detail in order to understand how these complex characteristics can be built.
The components of a high degree of respect for the institution of property rights are:
Individualism. However, it is impossible to explain this composite characteristic by simple individualism. Children at an early age are also extreme individualists, however, respect for other people's property rights has not yet been developed. Therefore, it would be appropriate to speak of constructive individualism as opposed to destructive.
Masculinity.
High degree of tolerance.
Long-term temporal orientation.
What explains the low degree of respect for the institution of property rights? Here, too, not everything is clear.
Collectivism. However, we know many examples of countries with a high level of collectivism, where the right to private property is inviolable. Therefore, we can talk about destructive collectivism in relation to property rights.
Individualism. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is precisely destructive (infantile) individualism.
Low degree of tolerance.
Femininity.
Short term time orientation.
The next complex characteristic is negotiability. Its components are individualism and tolerance. Thus, the low negotiability characteristic of Russia, which prevents self-organization, is explained by conflict individualism and low tolerance. It seems that there is some discrepancy here, because our country gravitates towards collectivism in terms of dimensions. For a full explanation of this phenomenon, it is not enough to decompose the antithesis individualism - collectivism into the same components: constructive - destructive. Then the characteristic begins to take shape presumably as follows: a high level of negotiability is determined by constructive collectivism and / or constructive individualism + high tolerance. Accordingly, the low level of negotiability in such logic can be defined through the terms: destructive individualism and / or destructive collectivism + low tolerance.
Inertia, as a factor blocking change, is also quite complex structure. How can it be built? For example, it is considered:
individualism combined with low uncertainty avoidance promotes innovation,
high power distance coupled with high uncertainty avoidance blocks change.
Accordingly, the full characteristic will contain the following terms: individualism - collectivism, high uncertainty avoidance - low, high power distance - low. Low inertia (innovation) can be interpreted as individualism + low uncertainty avoidance + low power distance. High inertia - through collectivism + high uncertainty avoidance + high power distance.
Legal susceptibility. It is believed that high power distance + low masculinity leads to non-compliance with rules and standards. The level of understanding of the legislation and the degree of its observance, obviously, can be explained by these terms. But in our complex characteristic of legal susceptibility there is a component of adaptability to changes in legislation. And this is the antithesis of innovation - inertia. Therefore, the complete set for low legal sensitivity, characteristic of Russia, may look like this: high power distance + low masculinity (high femininity) + collectivism (rather its destructive component) + high uncertainty avoidance. For the sake of completeness, let's model high legal susceptibility, which accordingly carries the following terms: low power distance + high masculinity + individualism (rather its constructive component) + low uncertainty avoidance.
The primacy of the beauty of an idea over its market demand (science for the sake of science). Or otherwise - the syndrome of an unrecognized genius. This - seemingly complex composite characteristic - seems to be based on just one initial component - collectivism. Collectivism, most likely, destructive. What kind of a scientist is he who gives priority to his pastime, as a process of scientific creativity, over the demand for the products of his labor by society? This can be understood and justified when it comes to fundamental research, because the fruits of such creativity cannot be obvious. But, how many scientists do we have who are engaged in applied developments, not understanding the prospects for their implementation? For a scientist - a destructive collectivist, the "products" of his labor serve as a moral justification for the benefits received in return. Fatigue is taken as a result. Maintaining such “enthusiasm” wastes significant resources of society. It can also be argued that such a specialist, having produced 99 unnecessary RIAs, will produce a masterpiece for the hundredth time, which will pay off the previous costs. In this case, we confuse the ongoing process of training this specialist with fruitful activity. Well, some of them remain students all their lives. But this does not mean that all scientists involved in the applied development of potentially unclaimed products have a destructive focus. In the transition from a planned economy to a market economy, which cultivate largely opposite basic values, the problem arises of the lack of demand for a scientist-developer - a constructive collectivist (for more details, see Appendix 8) who is not focused on meeting private (individual) demand. This is an underutilized resource for scientific, technological and economic development.
In this work, the socio-cultural features of the nation are deliberately emphasized, because they are of tremendous importance. However, due to the underdevelopment of theoretical prerequisites for their unambiguous scientific certainty, one should take into account the multivariance of approaches to create acceptable structures in this layer. The work cannot claim to be unambiguous in this matter. But it aims to use a thoughtful approach to considering the characteristics of the country in this context, taking into account the meager toolkit today.
Obviously, other basic components developed on other theoretical premises can also be used. It is important that they give logical harmony to the whole similar structural-functional research model.
The model proposed in this paper involves the study of both general characteristics and special ones. At the level of socio-cultural factors in the category "general" it makes sense to confine ourselves to the descriptive nature of the proposed components characteristic of the country as a whole. But, as noted earlier, one of the goals of the study is to identify best practices. Therefore, in the category of "features" of interest are those cultural differences of a particular university, which both contribute to the success of the formation of SIE for the commercialization of R&D, and those that most hinder. Such features can be revealed by further relying on qualitative research methods, planning in-depth interviews and quantitative studies appropriately, and interpreting their results in a conceptually meaningful way.
formal institutions.
The genesis of the formal institutional field of small business in the Russian Federation, starting from the late period of the USSR, is presented, for example, in, its current state is described, for example, in.
In the absence of a properly developed legislative framework, small and medium-sized businesses in Russia often have to operate not “thanks” to existing norms and practices, but “despite”. The main regulations governing the mechanisms for the commercialization of R&D of state LEUs are presented above. A set of current regulations that define the formal institutional environment for small businesses and mechanisms for the commercialization of university assets is presented in Appendix 6.
Starting modeling at this level, it is advisable to decompose formal norms and rules according to their integral semantic content. As "general", formal institutional conditions for small business in principle are of interest. As "special" - those exceptional rules of the game and support measures that apply to MIP. Let us list the most important of them related to the external institutional environment.
Small Business Institute:
institution of property rights to the means of production,
business establishment rules
conditions of belonging to small businesses,
business rules,
transformation rules (changing the shares of the management company, mergers, acquisitions, etc.)
termination rules (closure, bankruptcy).
Institute of Tax and Customs Administration:
calculation rules (taxes, excises, fees, duties, etc.)
reporting rules,
state control rules.
Institute of Labor Relations:
employee status,
recruitment rules,
rules for the relationship between the enterprise and the employee,
working conditions,
institution of a tax agency (see, inter alia, Appendix 7),
termination rules.
Institute of Intellectual Property and its Protection:
intellectual property as an intangible asset (accounting).
Licensing, certification and standardization institutions:
production,
manufactured products.
Institutes of labor protection and environmental safety.
Institutes for supporting small business and innovation in particular.
discount rules,
small business development institutions, including innovative ones.
Public Procurement Institute.
The institute of “compulsion to innovate”.
Institute for the commercialization of assets, including RNTD, owned by state universities and research institutes.
Institute for the settlement of economic conflicts.
Dynamics of changes in formal institutions.
The study of issues in this institutional field should be built on the principle of studying the direct and transaction costs of compliance with formal legislation. In this case, direct costs should include losses from the unequal position of an entity that complies with the law in relation to entities that violate it, taking into account the risk of sanctions for the latter. In other words, how profitable it is to operate within the framework of the law, in an unequal (in terms of compliance with the law) competitive environment.
To cover the "valley of death" of development, there are development institutions. It seems important in the course of the study to understand how the activities of these institutions meet the expectations of the participants directly involved in the commercialization of R&D - universities and SIE. Including their awareness of the programs of these development institutions and their satisfaction from interacting with them.
Figure 5 - Interaction of external and internal formal institutions that determine the mechanisms for the commercialization of university assets through MIP.
External formal legislation is fundamental to the formation internal system formal norms and rules of universities and SIE that promote or hinder the successful commercialization of university assets, including R&D. It's not just the rules inner life separately from the university and SIE, but also the formal practice of interaction between them.
The study of internal formal norms and practices in order to identify the best of them for subsequent replication seems to be an extremely useful task for the upcoming study.
Types of interaction of formal institutions with sociocultural factors
The interaction of sociocultural factors and formal institutions leads to the emergence of informal norms and practices. Such interaction is of a compensatory nature and can be of four types.
Table 2 - Typology of interactions between sociocultural factors and formal institutions.
“Complementary interaction occurs when informal institutions “fill in the gaps” either by dealing with those points that are not provided for in formal rules, or by facilitating the pursuit of personal goals within formal institutions. Such informal institutions often increase the effectiveness of formal ones. Complementary informal institutions can also become the basis for formal institutions, creating and reinforcing incentives to adhere to formal rules that may otherwise exist only on paper.
“Accommodative (accommodative) interaction creates motives for such behavior, which significantly changes the consequences of compliance with formal rules without their direct violation; they contradict the spirit, but not the letter, of the formal rules. Accommodative informal institutions are often created by actors who do not approve of the consequences of formal rules, but do not have the opportunity to change or openly violate these rules. Such informal institutions often help to reconcile the interests of these actors with existing formal institutional structures. Therefore, although accommodative informal institutions cannot increase the effectiveness of formal institutions, they can strengthen their stability by dampening calls for change.
“Competitive interaction structures the motives of behavior in such a way that they become incompatible with formal rules: in order to comply with some rules, actors are forced to violate others. Formal institutions are ineffective primarily because they are not only contradictory in themselves, but also strictly contradict fundamental informal rules. However, they continue to be supported by the state due to the fact that a more effective informal institution is associated with a violation of legal or moral norms and therefore cannot be legalized. It is this interaction that is the source of such informal institutions, such as patrimonialism, clientelism and corruption, which are characteristic of Russian conditions.
“Substitute interaction occurs where the institutional goals of formal and informal institutions are the same, but are achievable with greater efficiency using informal practices. Formal rules are ineffective, as a rule, due to the weakness of state structures or the lack of their powers. Like complementary interaction, substitutive interaction is used by those actors who strive for results consistent with formal rules and procedures.
These types of interaction can serve both as a guide for designing formal institutions and, at the same time, as an indicator of the effectiveness of already adopted formal norms and rules. So, for the purposes of this study, it is useful to determine the direction of the real commercialization of university R&D in the formal or informal field of law enforcement of the fundamental 217, 273 and 127 - FZ, which will automatically draw a conclusion about their effectiveness.
Informal norms and practices.
The emergence of new rules entails new transaction costs for stakeholders (for changing behavior, for protecting the rule, and, not least, for acquiring knowledge about this rule) and redistributes the benefits. It is not necessary at all, even if the total gain arises, so that none of the stakeholders was not at a loss. That is why dynamic indicators are so important in our model in terms of market conditions (tax rates, etc.) and in terms of changes in formal legislation. There are various ways to reduce these costs, but several directions can be distinguished:
leaving the zone of application of the rule (for example, to the “shadow sector”),
reducing the cost of following the rule,
production of compliance with formal criteria at minimal cost (imitation),
reducing the cost of breaking the rule,
lower rule protection costs.
“And a person who has been subjected, voluntarily or not, to the action of the new rule, is left to choose from three possibilities: to change his behavior in such a way that it meets formal criteria, to imitate this compliance, or to be subject to sanctions.”
Thus, around the whole complex of economic legislation, a set of informal institutions is formed, the purpose of which is to reduce the costs of implementing this legislation or not implementing it. These are the institutions of nepotism and bribery, various institutions of informal economic interaction, and, finally, the institutions of interaction between controllers and the controlled, which make it possible to reduce the costs associated with the control process itself. The criteria by which the inspector determines the real level of requirements and the depth of verification of their fulfillment are not limited to banal considerations of rent seeking. Three main factors in decision-making by an official: 1) minimization of one's own efforts; 2) implementation of the plan for fees, the number of checks or fines; 3) and only in third place is the receipt of administrative rent in one form or another. Finally, the official also has strategic considerations: thinking about the future, he makes sure not to "suffocate" the business under his control. These circumstances give rise to yet another class of institutions, the function of which is the joint reduction of the costs of the controller and the controlled.
Let us list the main strong informal institutions that have been firmly established in Russian business practice over the past quarter of a century and are relevant to the research problem.
“Patrimonialism (from Latin patri-monialis - generic) - English. patrimonialism; German Patrimonialism. According to M. Weber, it is a form of traditional domination by a single ruler, which differs from other forms by the existence of an environment personally obliged to him. Details about patrimonialism as an institution in.
“Paternalism (lat. paternus - paternal, paternal) is a system of relations in which the authorities provide for the needs of citizens, who in exchange allow them to dictate behavior patterns, both public and private. Paternalism reflects a narrow perspective, social cohesion by adopting a single code of ethics, limiting interests and forms of experience to those already established as traditional. It will not be superfluous to give a few more definitions of this concept.
“Paternalism is a system of relations based on the patronage, guardianship and control of the younger ones (wards) by the elders, as well as the subordination of the younger ones to the elders.
In domestic relations, patenalism is the principles and practice of public administration, built in the image of state control over people (similar to the father's control over children in a patriarchal family).
In labor relations (in some countries) - a system of additional benefits, subsidies and payments at enterprises at the expense of entrepreneurs in order to retain personnel, increase productivity, and alleviate stress.
“Clientelism (lat. cli-ens (cli-entis) - ward) is a model of political structuring of society based on a special type of relationship between a leader (patron) and his followers (clients) - supporters loyal to him or dependent on him. It manifests itself in the form of personal clients (lat. - clientela) - personal "teams" of individual leaders, as well as clientelized institutions, political and financial groups (from large enterprises, financial and economic structures to public authorities), based on patronage-client relations . The main characteristics of such groups are the isolation and hierarchical structure, as well as the informal nature of interaction in the struggle for the right to control resources.
Clanism - the division of society or members of an organization into clans.
These four institutions form the top level of the hierarchy of informal norms and practices. They are supported in our country by the weakness of the institution of civil society and, through the formed mechanisms of the modern Russian bureaucracy, they control the lower hierarchical levels of informal institutions. From the point of view of this work, political informal institutions serve only as a justification for informal norms and practices that lie in the economic plane. Undoubtedly, they have their roots in the socio-cultural layer of our society, both due to established historical traditions, and being predetermined simple (high power distance, destructive collectivism, high degree of uncertainty avoidance, low tolerance, high femininity) and complex socio-cultural characteristics (low legal sensitivity). , low negotiability, high inertia and a low degree of respect for the institution of property rights). They are needed for the completeness of the structural-functional model, but it makes no sense to dwell on them in detail.
Shadow (extralegal) economy - consolidation of shadow economic behavior in various organizationally stable forms, recognized by all participants in this type of activity and transmitted to subsequent generations of subjects engaged in this activity. This institution is formed in order to ensure preferential, illegal access to resources and markets of individual economic entities (unfair competition), as well as to reduce the full costs of compliance with the law. It is supported by informal upper-level institutions (usually through the institution of corruption), the complexity and, often, inconsistency of formal legislation, and the socio-cultural characteristics of society:
low legitimacy,
low negotiability,
a low degree of respect for the institution of property rights.
“Raidering (as an informal institution of redistribution of property) is a process of redistribution of property rights (including intellectual property) between subjects of economic relations, the implementation mechanisms of which depend on the current socio-economic system and national characteristics of the cultural and historical development of society” . It is supported by an atmosphere of insufficient respect for the institution of private property (complex socio-cultural characteristics), the unwillingness of society to unite to protect it (low negotiability - “my hut is on the edge”), low legal sensitivity, lack of independence and inefficiency of formal justice, as an institution of modern Russian bureaucracy.
Corruption is the abuse of public power for private gain. The phenomenon is characteristic of all countries, regardless of socio-cultural characteristics. Its scale is determined by the corresponding position of the elites, on the one hand, and by the extent to which society itself accepts this institution. Corruption in this model can be discussed as a reflection of the structure and strength of informal institutions that have been firmly established in our country, their indicator.
Figure 6 shows a structural-functional model of informal norms and practices that are typical for our national economy “in general”. Such a representation does not claim to be fully scientifically justified, but in the future it will make it possible to more accurately determine the direction of the search for the issues under study in the field of informal interaction.
Figure 6 - Structural and functional model of informal institutions.
It is important not only to study and model the institutional environment in the category of generality, but also to identify the features of certain structures that contribute to or hinder the commercialization of R&D universities. The study of the informal practices of universities in this context seems to be the most important task of the forthcoming research. Preliminary modeling of the informal institutional environment at this stage is impossible and inappropriate. However, as emphasized above, the process of such modeling is reflexive in relation to the study itself and will be completed only by its final. Now we can only outline the contours of future structures from the position of our concept (Figure 7).
Figure 7 - The logic of building a structural-functional model of informal university institutions.
Obviously, national socio-cultural factors are the source of special socio-cultural factors specific to a particular university.
The same can be said about formal institutions. The interaction of these four fields gives rise to the fifth - the field of specific informal norms and practices characteristic of a given educational institution. How and why they take shape, and to what extent these institutions contribute to or hinder the real commercialization of RSTD - that's what matters. It seems that answers to such questions can be obtained relying to a greater extent on qualitative research methods.
Of course, this layer of the presented concept is rather difficult to formalize from a theoretical point of view. It is necessary to strive to build a full-fledged structural-functional model of the phenomenon at this level. However, if there is doubt about its validity, one can limit oneself to a set of cases of informal norms and practices that promote or hinder the commercialization of R&D in state universities.
Scientific potential.
The construction of a structural-functional model at this level is based on the traditional understanding of what constitutes a scientific potential. This is knowledge in the form of scientific schools and directions, their distinctive advantages. Scientific personnel as carriers of this and potential new knowledge. Research and production base as a tool for obtaining and implementing knowledge. Let us dwell in more detail on each of these components and on what matters in them from the point of view of the goals of the forthcoming study.
quality of applied education,
interdisciplinarity of education (as the most important global trend in the direction of developments that have the potential for commercialization),
practical experience in the implementation of developments,
migration of scientific personnel in terms of qualitative replacement.
Knowledge capital (quality of intangible assets):
existing R&D that meet modern market demands (commercialization potential, degree of security),
potential R&D that meet the market demands of tomorrow (qualitative foresight),
dynamics of RNTD data reproduction.
Quality of tangible assets:
research equipment and accessories,
research and production base.
The categories of general and special are implemented in this model at the macro (country) and micro (university, SIE) levels, respectively. The result of the study at the macro level can be compiled from the totality of the studied components at the micro level and based on the analysis of open statistical data and the media. The study of the characteristics of the scientific potential of a university or SIE should be based primarily on quantitative research.
At the heart of knowledge capital are well-trained personnel, and he, in turn, is the basis for creating a material base for research and development. Formal institutions are called upon to provide support and development of all three components of the scientific potential: intellectual property and its protection, support for small business and innovation in particular, public procurement, "forcing innovation", commercialization of assets, including R&D, owned by state universities and research institutes.
It should be noted that the knowledge capital in market conditions and, in particular, the dynamics of the reproduction of RIA with the potential for commercialization, are directly affected by the sociocultural characteristics of this model, such as the primacy of the beauty of an idea over its market demand and the low degree of respect for the institution of property rights, which determines , in turn, such an informal institution as raiding.
Innovation infrastructure.
According to the research concept (Figure 4), the innovation infrastructure aims to ensure the implementation of the underlying layers of the R&D commercialization pyramid into real innovations. Infrastructure "in general" is designed to reduce the total costs of "circulation" of information, financial, inventory (means of communication) and energy flows (development of energy networks).
Innovation infrastructure, as a “special” category from the point of view of innovation policy, is those of its objects that are created to realize the scientific and technical potential in the country's economy. The structural-functional model of this layer of the "pyramid" can be presented in the form of a table.
Table 3 - Model of innovation infrastructure.
From the point of view of the proposed approach, the complex of problems around the Russian innovation infrastructure seems quite understandable. In a nutshell, it boils down to the fact that the created objects are not in demand in due measure according to their intended purpose. Their application gravitates toward informal practices, and their cost-effectiveness indicators are built on short planning horizons. There is practically no holistic understanding and formed practices for their application. Often, enterprises that use them in their activities can hardly be called innovative in the true sense of the term.
In the course of the forthcoming research, it is important to find out:
understanding of the national innovation system by respondents in terms of infrastructure (qualitative research methods);
what objects they tried/gained access to, how easily (quantitative methods);
how effective these facilities are in terms of solving infrastructure problems in general (quantitative methods);
what critical tasks for specific respondents these objects do not solve (combination of qualitative and quantitative methods);
how do universities and SIEs solve their infrastructural tasks in general (qualitative methods);
complete the model by adding infrastructure objects to the list in the category of special objects (including those that are not considered as such), and, having decomposed the general category into detailed subcomponents, determine the corresponding “weights” of infrastructure components at the intersections of the columns and rows of the model;
identify the correlation of formal and informal practices of using existing infrastructure facilities, their effectiveness in terms of solving the problems of the innovation agenda.
entrepreneurial potential.
Entrepreneurship potential is understood as an individual - an entrepreneur in the scientific and technical field, able to realize the underlying layers of our "pyramid" into full-fledged innovations, and their totality - their total number, working within the framework and for the benefit of the national economy. Obviously, in the category of generality are professional competencies such people:
strategic management,
marketing,
business economics and finance,
basics of taxation and accounting. accounting,
knowledge of the legislation in the field of entrepreneurial activity,
management of intellectual property and intangible assets,
business modeling, business design,
personnel management, psychology of research activity,
engineering, innovation process management, research and development,
high technology business risk management,
commercialization of research and development,
knowledge of the national innovation system (institutions and infrastructures),
history and philosophy of the development of science and technology, product and technology foresight,
project management,
special methods for finding technical solutions (TRIZ, brainstorming, etc.),
knowledge management,
knowledge of foreign (primarily English) technical and business languages.
It is these competencies that ensure the connection of resources and markets in the production chain, the connection of ideas and their successful commercialization in the development chain, the connection of all layers of our “pyramid” in the process of implementing the entire set of conditions and factors. For their study, quantitative methods in the form of a questionnaire can be used.
entrepreneurial intelligence,
leadership skills,
organizational skills,
volitional qualities.
These are the unique character traits of an entrepreneur that determine the success of the implementation of the goals set, and the ways to achieve them. Each enterprise is unique, which is primarily predetermined by the personality of its leader. It is possible to identify such features only with the use of qualitative research methods.
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