The search for and development of new business areas is one of the most important organizational competencies for both established companies and startups.The constantly changing business environment increases the pressure to innovate on firms across all industries. Simultaneously, growing market competition forces companies to decrease costs in order to ensure longterm survival and growth. This dilemma calls for new and efficient strategies to innovate and to develop and sustainably exploit new business areas. One approach to face this is the so called “Technological Competence Leveraging (TCL)”: it helps firms to exploit underutilized potential by finding new applications for their existing technological competencies.
In the E&I Project Course “New Business Development”, participants learn and train selected instruments, methods (such as TCL), and competencies necessary for identifying and developing new business opportunities in the technological context. In cooperation with our project partners (start-ups, leading Tech-Companies as well as research institutions such as Fraunhofer), participants will:
- Systematically research and evaluate new business opportunities for innovative technologies
- Create concrete commercialization strategies on the basis of detailed market and competitor analyses
- Develop and present the results in the framework of a real business proposal (strategically oriented business plan)
The course starts at a very early stage of the entrepreneurial process. Since neither target markets nor concrete specifications regarding the commercialization strategy/business model for the technologies are defined in advance, participants will start before the classical business planning. Furthermore, students are not only confronted with operative planning tasks, but also with the strategic aspects of innovation management in the preparation of a new business proposal. During the course, students will slip mentally into the "role" of a business consultant or business development manager and work together with their team on the project.
Each team works independently and in cooperation with the project partner on the concrete case. The teams will be supported by the course instructors as well as experts and management consultants specialized in innovation management and new business development. In 2013 the course E&I New Business Development was awarded the "Excellent Teaching Award" by WU Vienna.