Joe Greaney 4.03.2011

BICs, a Knowledge Transfer tool for
smart Innovation-based regions
Joe Greaney
EBN President, Brussels
CEO of WestBIC, Galway (Ireland)

TT & innovation-based economy conference, KRAKOW (PL),
4th March 2011
EBN – European BIC Network
Avenue de Tervuren, 168. B – 1150 Bruxelles
Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74
E-mail: ebn@ebn.eu – Internet : www.ebn.eu

Let’s talk about
EBN
Networks
Incubation
Entrepreneurship
Ecosystems
Innovation
Management
Services & Apps
Impact & performance
Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

The EBN Network
a community sharing values, goals & brands

• The European Network of BICs, incubators, innovation and
entrepreneurship & start-up Centres >>> « Innovation-based
incubators » >>> Business & Innovation Centres (BICs)

• An organised Network of 200+ Business & Innovation Support
Centres covering most regions of EU 27 + neighbouring as well as
partnering countries

• An initiative taken 25 years ago by the EC (DG Regio), public
authorities, industry leaders, and Universities >>> A pioneer in
PPP, a connector between knowledge and business

• A dynamic cluster of clusters with 25.000+ entrepreneurs within
the active portfolio >> > with Village Tronic, Exilica, Vivalis, Lipotec,
Codasystem, Semiotix, Biofly, BioAzul, Kandor Graphics, Leica
Geosystems, Jamendo, etc inside

• A community of qualified & committed intermediaries, with St-
John Innovation Centre, Cap Alpha, Innostart, Promotech, Innotek,
Knowledge Dock, Solvay Entrepreneurs, Technoport, Innovatum,
Berytech, Technowest, and KRAKOW technology park inside !

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

A network of course !
o
Standing alone is not an option

• A network is a non-linear process, a fractal subject, with fuzzy logic,
playing expert systems, semi-chaotic, with its own open source language,
inter-operable and plugable, coopetitive,

• A true new profession to be inserted in academic (pragmatic) education, a
community with its own « entrepreneurship-driven » language and C(C for
Community)RM software !

• A strange business object with a passion for services and for Knowledge
Transfer:
- collective reputation builder & roadmapping
- internal quality insurance & external branding
- total benchmarking & resources centre
- intra-community networking & thematic groupings
- idea-lab, toolkit, projects factory
- hub & spoke connecting platform
Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

Networking but
why Networking ?

• Learning : knowledge, know-how, tools
• Finding Models: business, role, leadership, admiration
• Being inspired by method & benchmarks
• Being proud of exposing robust results & impact
• Sharing efforts: work, investment, risk, reward
• Help taking decisions: right or wrong
• Sharing values: ethics, integrity, reputation
• Buena Vista social-club: trust, affectivity, emotion !
• Exploring the world: trends, idea & opportunity spotting
• Teaming-up talents: teams, core competences, collaborative
management, know-who & outsourcing
• Enhancing ICT skills: connected, pervasive
• Making business & money: of course !

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

The language of Innovation
Networks is changing!
do you speak entrepreneurship ?

« leadership, collaborative, open-minded, multi-disciplined,
teaming, unique individuals, BD lovers, passion, work, rigor,
conviction, talents, emotion, challenge-driven, customer-
oriented, curiosity, courage, audace, tenacity, fighting spirit,
solutions-driven, vision, risk, social engagement, adaptability,
agility, mobility, ethics, integrity, simplicity, sense,
communicator, focus, conscience, substance, excellence,
invasive, pervasive, inclusive, visual, research, knowledge,
duration, compliant but not too much, solidarity, exchanges,
sharing, nomad, IT-addict, cash-fan, investment-ready, fast
networker »…What else?
Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

The EBN geography
Back to physical delivery

Over 160 accredited BICs,
Full Members of EBN,
including KRAKOW TP

Over 80 Associated
Members… looking forward
for accreditation &
collaborative networking

A real Pan-European
Network (including North
Africa, Middle East, Russia &
Western Balkans)

Ad-hoc strategic connections
worldwide (US, Russia, Chile,
Canada, Israel,, China,
Singapore and Brazil)
Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

The Story Line
the 25 first years
180

160

140 2010
Over 250
Members (EC-
2002 BICs and
120 Associate)
Outsourcing
of the EC-
2000 – 2002 BIC Label to Deployment of
Re-engineering EBN by the the ESA-BIC
100 of the EBN EC label in
1999 Association partnership
Positive with ESA
independent
80 evaluation of the
BIC instrument

1991
60 BICs integrated
First non-
into mainstream
EU BICs
Structural Funds
created in
1984 the Czech &
40 Slovak
First BIC Republics
created in
Liege, Belgium
20
n° BICs
EBN Created

0
Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

What impact?
Cumulative figures for the entire network

175.000 Business Plans developed

65.000 Start-up companies created

250.000 Existing SMEs supported

275.000 Jobs created

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

Which trends?
Varying but growing over the years

25000

20000

15000

10000

5000

0
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
Start-ups SMEs Jobs Business Plans

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

BICs’ core business/competences
a standards for Innovation-based Incubators

• incubator of new business ideas/models
• creator of new innovative start-ups
• generator of spin-offs
• developer of innovative SME projects
• accelerator of growth
• animator of clusters
• proximity connector local/global
• multiplier of public policy
• networking hub to experts, agents, players, investors…
• Opportunity spotter, « hands-on » business developper
• Coach & mentor, strategic advisor

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

The portrait of a BIC
(part 1)

• A light and flexible structure (8 to 12 staff + outsourced experts)

• Predominantly a public body, but highly representative of the
private sector as well! (Legal status: 51% public, 14% mixed private-
public, 35 % private)
• A regional and international “networker” :
• Universities, Science Parks and R&D institutions
• Chambers of Commerce & Regional Development Agencies
• Large Companies and Investors
• Public Institutions
• Highly focused on innovative entrepreneurship, increasingly in:
• ICT, Telecom and Mobile Apps
• Energy, Environment and Cleantech
• Life Sciences and Biotech
• Mecatronics and Software Apps

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

The portrait of a BIC
(part 2)

• Providing added-value services to entrepreneurs:
• Business planning and modeling
• Scenario building and financial simulation
• SME Financing, Seed capital and venture capital, growth financing
• International cooperation, soft landing and partner search
•Innovation projects engineering
• Hands-on customized support to high-growth gazelle (post-incubation)
• Legal business advice, commercial contracts, Intellectual Property Rights
• Stimulating the eco-system
•Experiencing new approaches (Open innovation with LE, Living labs,…)

• Offering “incubation facilities” (average of 30 companies, creating 155 Jobs,
living together in 3000 m2)
•Animating clusters and helping collaborative projects to succeed (poles of
competitiveness, local clusters, etc.)

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

The Performance of the Network
Key Performance Indicators in 2008

Number of start-up or other enterprise projects
7.739
during the year

Selected prior to feasibility study 20.943

Number of business plans produced during the year 8.285

Number of start-ups created during the year 6.297

Enterprise Survival Rate 89%

Number of tenants in incubator 3.893

Total employment by tenants in 2008 23.242

Number of jobs created in SMEs 6.376

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

Value For Money
Cost-benefit ratios 2005 - 2008

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

Where is EBN going?
The next 25 years

Boosting
collaboration,
sharing
knowledge and
Networking BICs tools through
through B2B, B2F, B2K
international events
Together with the projects, with EC, And through
best, learning ESA, GSA, WB, N2N protocols
from the top EPO,… (IASP, EEN, EBAN,
performers EURADA, ENOLL,
Towards web- And deploying a
based solutions Bringing the end- down-to-earth INFODEV and
customers at the soft-landing ANPROTEC) +
heart of the platform for N2BSchools
action: building a innovative start- partnerships
Maximizing the network of smart ups (IESE, ESCP, IE,
virtues of champion SKEMA, SOLVAY,
Benchmarking entrepreneurs IAG, …)

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

…in search of …
the Perfect BIC/Incubator

...powered by dream teams, guided by visionaries, endorsed by leading stakeholders, totally
credible to the private sector, mandated by the public sector, sustainable and politically
independent, making impact on the civil society, stimulating the entrepreneurship
culture, embedding innovation by all means and with all (from academic sources or not) ,
serving a multi sectors entrepreneurs communities, open to external partnerships,
interacting with other instruments in an open & smart mode, a connectors of small
businesses to the global landscape, acting as an idea-lab and development centre for
growing firms, providing knowledge and creativity centres facilities, finally an interactive
cross-road for people, projects, know-how, technologies, IP, Investment, researchers and
entrepreneurs.

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

The business support ecosystem
clear focus & easy access !

• Efficient territorial innovation
ecosystems require a well-
characterized road-map of
support services providers
• Vital for individual performances
and for enabling cooperation
between players
• Simply vital for the emergence of
competences, efficency of
support, and open innovation
• Plug your BIC, your STP, your IBI
adequately into the ecosystem
and collaborate openly arounfd
your core knowledge/competence
Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

Let’s talk about innovation
Do you recognize these multinationals ?

Open Innovation & Knowledge sourcing count for them!
!
• Connect & develop
• Sense & simplicity
• Ecomagination
• Efficient dynamics
• Think different
• Motion & emotion
• Invent
• Think
• Connecting people
• Sponsors of tomorrow

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74
Innovation - Sept. 2010 - Philippe
VANRIE 19

Connecting ideas, markets & people:
this is KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER Today
Market & customers Ideas & networking
• Develop I Succeed • Thinking
• Move I Motion I Dynamics • Inventing
• Simplicity • Connecting
• Sense • Collaborating
• Tomorrow • Imagination
• Progress I Power • Passion
• … • …
• People ! • People !

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

Why innovation matters ?
environment + competition + new needs + obsolescence +
opportunities + new methods
• Changes in the environment • Disruptive technologies make
forces companies to find new existing businesses obsolescent
ways to serve their customer (ex: the rise of digital
profitably (ex: automotive photography)
industry)
• Emerging technologies provide
• Increasing competitive pressures opportunities for value creation
threaten existing businesses (ex: (ex: mini-cyclotrons)
National Posts)

• New customer needs emerge that • Traditional innovation
requires new answers (ex: non management methods based on
letal weapons) perfect information and rational
decision making need to be
adjusted, in an age of change &
uncertainty
Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74
VANRIE 21

What is innovation ?
An ocean of vocabulary
• Upstream R&D, yes of course (new IP above all)
• Technology & Engineering (a passion for optimizing processes)
• Blue ocean (inventing new market, ex: i-pad)
• Red ocean (intensifying frontal competition)
• Radical (Re-inventing your company!, ex: Keytrade bank)
• Disruptive (« innovation perturbatrice », ex: RyanAir)
• Incremental (Optimizing the processes)
• Micro-innovations (constituents of a corp. system for innovation)
• Quality management & continuous improvement
• Strategic innovation (ex: Dacia)
• Unintentionnal innovation
• Survival innovation (La Redoute « on-line » shop)
• Downstream applications (end users-oriented)

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74
VANRIE 22

Types of innovation
another classification!
• Product innovation (ex: Dyson bagless vaccuum cleaner)
• Services innovation (ex: Rolls Royce Total Care« power by the
hour »)
• Process innovation (ex: the Toyota Production System-TPS)
• Management innovation (ex: Siemens, SAP)
• Marketing innovation (ex: Apple, Shell shops)
• Business model innovation (ex: Amazon, Dell)
• Collaborative innovation (ex: Nespresso)
• Digital innovation (ex: Google)
• Social (& CSR) innovation (ex: nokia-siemens networks)
• Open innovation (open source of course, otherwise a buzz ?)
Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

Benefits of innovation ?
Only advantages !?
• Improving quality
• Improved production processes
• Improving profitability and growing revenue
• Defending core business and expression of market leadership
• Extension of product/services ranges
• Creation of new markets
• Reduced labour costs & promoting lean manufacturing
• Reduced energy & materials consumption
• Reduced R&D costs
• Promoting intra-preneurship & market-oriented attitudes
• Attracting strategic industrial partners
• Upgrading customers & prospects’ perception
• Improving the diffusion of a positive company culture & image
• Increasing shareholders value EBN – European BIC Network
Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

How does innovation works ?
with sociology, psychology & realism

• First of all, integrate innovation at the core of the strategy, as a
pivotal & visible corporate value
• Moving from/balancing optimizing business to/and creating
business
• Develop innovation teams (with R&D of course but not only)
• Stimulate participative management, a high degree of delegation
& responsibility, collaborative & team works, and employee
engagement (an innovative HRM style)
• It’s an « inside-out » open process interacting with customers,
prospects, suppliers, partners, competitors, staff
• Balance supply-pushed (new technologies) with demand-led
(based on market requirements)
• Design systems for ideas assesment and prioritization of
detected/selected opportunities
Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

The innovators’ dna
Does it require specific skills ?

• Creative intelligence, • Associating skills
not only cognitive skills (connecting disciplines)
• Courage to take + ability • Questionning skills
to manage risks (why, why not, what if,…)
• Courage to start + stop • Observing skills
• Emotion + realism (observing others, being
anthropologist/sociologist)
• Collective leadership • Experimenting skills
• Customer intelligence (prototyping + overseas exp.)
• Opportunity spotters • Networking skills
• KM/EI integrators (going out, ideas festivals,…)

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74
VANRIE 26

The innovation tool-box
is there a difference between innovation and management ?

• Human capital & HR • Focus groups
management • Creativity techniques
• Techno push/market pull • Quality tools (Kaizen, Six
• Benchmarking Sigma,…)
• Trendcharts & roadmaps • TRIZ method (problem solving)
• Pipeline management • Lean management
• Projects management • Design thinking
• Balance score cards • Awards & challenges
• Business model simulation • Corporate incubators & venturing
• PLM & virtual reality • …
• Serious games

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

How to encourage innovation ?
You can decide, you have an influence !

• Fix innovation as a management (ambitious?) goal
• Allow staff to spend time on ideas development
• Create a process to pick-up ideas & reward idea producers
• Provide incentive to people for moving ideas forward
• Design a decision-making mechanism for investing in new ideas
• Define a common metrics to measure innovation & impact
• Establish an innovation culture (staff diversity, boost creativity, accelerate
external contacts, promote a customer-centric attitude, mobilize teams of
champions)
• Promote collaborative schemes (internal + outsourced)
• Do not forget to support two key enabling factors for innovation:
entrepreneurship + networking capacities
• Avoid « locked-in » to existing technologies & business models syndroma , for
established firms/mature industry
Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

Back2interacting
connect yourself with your environment
• Stimulate creativity at the periphery (on emerging or niches aspects of
the business) of the core business units
• Take an active part in your ecosystem’s life (ex: poles of competitiveness,
clusters, corporate incubators, corporate venturing fund, technoparks,
FP7 joint research projects,...)
• Develop an acute sense of advanced services amongst your innovation
team (Oracle selling associated services & consultancy)
• Capture capabilities held by small firms (M&A or others), such as in
Biotech (GSK ‘s Centres for excellence in drug discovery)
• Open your non core-business IP, and deploy a licensing strategy
• Let others develop your non strategic initiatives (Lucent, H-P)
• Sponsor communities of young talents (engineering schools, business
schools) and of application developers (Ex: Intel, Oracle)
• Invest in innovation-based educational program, for valorizing the
multi-cultural character of the company, and for picking talents
• An innovating company is forced to consistently innovate in its
communication (annual report, web-sites,...)
Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

Back2downstream
the Apps era !

The Changing Technology landscape is not only affected by
disruption, but more by the rise of applications, with/without IP

@ a hunger for applications,
@ the emergence of niches,
@ an extreme diversity in applications,
@ serial “opportunity spotting”, fast movers and integrators of
market intelligence,
@ by customer-lead innovation routes,
@ by pervasive solutions approaches >>> output: hard, soft &
data downstream applications for usable products & services

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

B2territories
the place-based theory, the proximity factor
• Serious Gaming at Coventry (entrepreneurial) University, Dublin & Galway
• Birmingham (real SMEs) Photonics Clusters
• Chem2biz basf spin-off incubator in Ludwigshafen
• KIS Biotherapies clustering in Nantes
• Knowledge Dock regeneration in the Docklands
• Creative computer graphics in Darmstadt
• Cleantech platform in Lahti
• Software development centre for start-ups in Cork
• SatNav Galilleo applications incubated in Liège & Lux
• An IT community of 100+ start ups in Barcelona
• An integrated TT-Incubation-VC-cluster animation system on micro/nano-
electronics at Imec in Leuven
• Creativity and design crash courses in Sunderland
• Mechatronics in Haute-Savoie, Photovoltaics in Savoie,
• Creative industries in Trolhattan as a response to automotive

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

B2projects
we are in a « project-lead economy »

• Networks = an ideal collaborative platform for
European projects
• European projects = communities of BICs, Companies
and other players co-developing, and sharing
opportunities
• Projects = a networking place with institutions (EC, ESA,
GSA, WB, …), a way to connect with them
• Projects = a platform where hundreds of clustered
innovative small businesses meet big players
• Int’l Project management= A living micro-management
school!

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

All these new ways to consider Innovation are actually
contributing to create an appropriate
environmement for « the fifth freedom » : the free
movement of ideas and know-how, to create
transactions between any knowledge-based players,
and to transform our territories into smart open
collaborative and attractive places smart & open
entreprenrurs & innovators!

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

European BICs Network (EBN)
Joe GREANEY

Avenue de Tervuren, 168, B-1150 Brussels

Tel. +32 (0)2 772 89 00
Fax +32 (0)2 772 95 74

pva@ebn.be
www.ebn.eu

Phone: + 32 2 772 89 00 - Fax: +32 2 772 95 74

Joe Greaney 4.03.2011

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