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by Dr Cait Murray-Green 13 Feb, 2024
It’s now February, the darkest shortest days of the year are behind us and hopefully the weather will improve. All that periphery stuff really makes a difference to the wellbeing of a team, even if no-one suffers from SAD the extra effort of getting anywhere, or just keeping awake when all your sensory inputs are telling you to hibernate can take a toll. For businesses this is the time of the year when we often look at goals, set targets, adjust the budget plan and try to inject enthusiasm into the projects and workforce. Looking at the challenges for your company – how many of them that have been set are purely focussed on economic outcomes? How well is your company embracing and challenging itself on the environmental impact or social impact of what you are about? If you are thinking about any grant application in the coming year, you are more than likely to see sections on economic, social and environmental impact, on your plan for Net Zero and your approach to diversity. These areas are important, they are worth consideration rather than a rushed paragraph or two just before hitting submit. For us at SSC, Sustainable Development is a big thing. We truly believe that embracing a better world, with better products and a reduced inequality gap is the best route for businesses everywhere. Profit is important, but it is only part of the package. Having clarity on your status against Net Zero Scope 1, 2 and 3 is going to become increasingly important for the supply chain of all your customers. Why not get ahead on that as well? If any of these areas (Net Zero, Grant applications, Sustainable Development measurables) are important to you or you want to address them in your 2024 challenges then let us know and we can assist with a strategy session. Dr Cait Murray-Green
by Dr Cait Murray-Green 06 Oct, 2023
As business leaders, some of us are starting to get our heads around Net Zero and Scope 1, 2 and 3 requirements. Some of us will be making progress with Life Cycle Analysis; perhaps also traceability of our products and services. And others will be baffled by all the above.
by SSC 14 Sept, 2023
Take the opportunity to give back when you can
by Dr Cait Murray-Green 27 Jun, 2023
How to be Truly Maximising your Sustainable Development Credentials When Business talks about Sustainability and being sustainable what do they mean? The economic aspects of creating a business model that will be successful for the future is pretty much understood by all, but what about the other aspects – the impacts on the environment and on people? Sustainability is really about bringing together the three aspects Economic, Social and Environmental, (often referred to as the three pillars) with equal importance and implementing them into how business interacts with the world and its resources. Sometimes businesses which are highly technical can find it difficult to relate their ambitions and practices into a world which needs them to be more considerate. They can feel disengaged as they are so embedded in the market needs of a capital led industry and surrounded in urban locations long since selected for rapid air-links and motorway links to suppliers and customers. However, the reality is that the need to embrace change across all business is of urgency no matter the market you are in or want to get into – and it is possible to achieve at a fundamental level without the need for greenwashing! At the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 2012, Member States adopted the outcome document "The Future We Want" in which they decided, to launch a process to develop a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to establish the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 SDGs was adopted at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York in September 2015. With the post-Covid Build Back Better Sustainable Innovation Fund in the UK and the NGEU largest ever funding budget from the EU there are many opportunities for companies with Innovation ideas to be able to obtain some grant support. Sustainable Development isn’t just a buzzword, it is rapidly becoming a deeply embedded set of criteria that all innovation must embrace and align with in or fail to get public sector support. From the research that SSC has done it appears that companies fall into mainly two categories. The first is the group of companies that feel their business cannot fit into the criteria and that the goals really don’t apply to their ultra-technical market. They tend to make some effort around Gender Equality and skip rapidly over the list without any real engagement with the meaning of what is being asked across the other 16. The second are companies that are aligned with the BioEconomy, with getting a balance with the Three Pillars of society, environment and economics, and very naturally are doing what the UN has challenged them with. The first group tend to miss out positives about their businesses which could help them bring SD into their working practice without much effort, and therefore more easily score more thoroughly on the Sustainable Development section of any application forms. The second group tend to miss out positives about their businesses which they are failing to headline and include in their applications.  Here is our guide to what you can do to make your company more clearly and visibly aligned with the 17 Goals
by Dr Cait Murray-Green 05 May, 2023
 Grant Application forms are a black art to some people. A world of bureaucracy, frustrating and time consuming with sometimes little return for the effort put in. However, grant money is a great way to support micro and small companies get through to “adulthood” and once you get into the rhythm of what is needed it can become easier and more successful. The first thing to do is to understand where you actually want your company to grow and develop over the next 3 years or so. Then identify what activities that are already in your plan can be naturally shaped into projects that have the potential for grant funding. If you are stretching the definitions to make it fit, then it is unlikely to be successful. Grants are there to support increased revenues, especially export revenues new job roles and to safeguard existing employees bring in additional revenues to government through business rates innovation and the creation of new IP. And increasingly to allow companies to transition to Net Zero, Zero Waste, Circular Economy and to meet Sustainable Development goals. They do this through part-support of projects that enable expansion of premises, access to new equipment, support of staff wages whilst innovation for new products takes place and investigations of new market sectors and relationship /network building. Don’t forget the need to make short videos and create pitch decks – those presentation skills are increasingly part of the initial assessment. Communication is KEY for success. The forms require you to set out the vision for your company, to justify why the grant is needed and to check that you have the finance to make the project happen. After all, they need to risk assess the situation themselves whilst also being mindful that they are there to support business when investors won’t do it alone or at all. SSC have worked in the grant sector in various ways. Members of our team have at times been part of local development agencies like Scottish Enterprise supporting companies through the grant applications process. We have colleagues that work as assessors for grants at multiple levels including EU EIC Innovation grants. We have also been at the coalface creating applications from scratch for various agencies and even for business competitions and had solid levels of success across the whole grant spectrum from R2B grants from Business Finland to SMART innovation grants in Scotland/UK. These days, we are very much in the business of sharing that knowledge with others! First Published: 1 Dec 2021
by Dr Cait Murray-Green 24 Apr, 2023
Seeds of Entrepreneurship
by Dr Cait Murray-Green 14 Apr, 2023
The world of a business expert at SSC is a strange one. We are constantly learning new things, trying to understand the cutting-edge of technology in many market areas, trying to make contacts with all sorts of vibrant and interesting people and companies to be able to make connections. We are always watching. We are also not afraid to roll-up our sleeves and provide practical support where it is needed. Sometimes it is the right thing to do to be immersed in a company for the length of a project and share knowledge from the inside not just through a report or presentation. Recently SSC in Scotland has been working with two young companies who are wanting to take their ideas and introduce them to the world. They ideally want to be able to obtain grant and investment funding to allow them to take their prototypes and develop them into successful products and to grow their companies around that, enabling employment and revenue. It is a pleasure and a privilege to see their progress and the changes they are making. For us, it is also the proof of our own skills as that "Teach One" element of mentoring is an art. I think the mark of a true expert is in being able to understand the influence of communication within business enough to be able to encourage and guide others to embrace those skills and use them to move their own businesses forwards. It might be a strange world at times, but it is hugely rewarding to be trusted with such a depth and quality of new technologies as they make their journey forward to market and commercial success. 1st Published 14 July 2020
by Tony Medland, SSC Consultant 31 Mar, 2023
Applying for grant funding is highly competitive and an application requires time and effort to get it right. Success relies heavily on the views of the assessors so giving some thought to what they are looking for can help to get the right outcome. It scarcely needs saying but before embarking on writing a funding application it is crucial that you select the right scheme or competition. It doesn’t matter how excellent your idea and proposal is if it does not align with the funding scope. It will simply get rejected by the assessors. So spend some time reading the guidance and don’t forget to make full use of any FAQ/helpdesk service provided. It’s important to remember that assessors are unlikely to be experts in your specific market or technology so don’t leave anything to guesswork and make sure you reference the terms used in the scheme’s guidance and try to avoid acronyms and highly technical language. Above all, keep it concise and simple as they will have a lot of applications to trawl through! Assuming you have identified the right scheme for your proposal, the next step is to think through the best way to present your case for support. Remember the importance of a good first impression - those first few sentences are critical, so you need to make them interesting and exciting to the assessor to create positive momentum for the rest of the application. The heart of any business case must focus on how you will make money from the market opportunity identified. There is an increasing expectation with most schemes to show detailed market research and to have established initial contacts with potential customers. A good tip therefore is to avoid starting by trying to explain how great your idea is or how clever the technology is, but to describe the market need you are targeting and how it will be addressed by your proposal. The assessor is looking to see whether you understand the potential market for your proposal. The best applications use current market data references and describe the wider picture before focusing on the market share expected for the specific idea. The dynamics of the market are also important: Is it growing? How fast? What trends affect it? What is the competition? What are the barriers to entry? The assessor will want to understand your strategy to access the market to see if this is realistic. If you cannot explain how your product will be made, who will retail it and your sales or service model you may struggle. You should be upfront about any legislation or regulatory issues, current or forthcoming, that may affect your ability to access a market. Don’t claim too much – the assessor knows what is realistic. A badly defined market opportunity can come undone at this point. People don’t generally buy technology but rather what technology does for them, so even the most exciting idea or cutting-edge technology will fail if potential customers see no benefit or are not able to use it effectively. The assessor will be keen to understand who your target customers or end users are, whether your product or service meets their aspirations and whether it is easy to adopt. Applications can often fall down by not demonstrating that they have engaged with likely customers or manufacturers. Remember that the route to market and exploitation are as important as the product/service being developed. The assessor wants to understand if the applicant has the skills, experience, resources and facilities to carry out the project AND to exploit the results themselves. For most grant schemes, you are seeking public funds for your project, so the assessor will want to see if the investment of public funds is value for money. You will need to explain why you can’t afford it and then show why commercial finance isn’t available. The kind of answer that assessors are looking for here usually relates to risk: i.e. it is too risky for commercial investors hence grant funding could help to get through this stage of development or there is a need to reduce the time to market in order to get there ahead of competitors. Applications that do well don’t just state the commercial benefits of the idea but emphasise how others could benefit including any project partners and stakeholders outside the project. Given that grants will usually involve public funds, other categories should include the economic, social and environmental benefits. It is important to demonstrate that the project will be helping more than just the applicant and to explain how this can be achieved by your business strategy. Don’t ignore the potential negative impacts. These should be identified and mitigation described because if the assessor judges that your project is potentially damaging, and you haven’t considered this, it will be taken negatively. Providing a credible delivery plan is crucial. The assessor wants to understand the technical approach but while they will generally be knowledgeable in your sector, you should not assume they will be familiar with all the technical aspects. Avoid jargon and acronyms and break down the project into key work packages and milestones. Essentially, preparing the delivery plan shouldn’t be any different to your own project plans. The assessor is looking to see if the plan is realistic, whether there is sufficient resource (and where it is coming from) and that there is good management in place. They will have considerable project management experience so make sure these aspects are clear and it all adds up! Lastly, it is important to undertake a complete risk assessment across all the areas listed in guidelines and describe the mitigation you will follow to minimize and control the risk for each. Remember risk is not a bad thing and is often integral to any innovation. The natural instinct is to play down the risk in order to convince the assessors that it will succeed and therefore must be supported. However, low risk ratings could well convince the assessor that this does not need funding (why would you need funds to help de-risk a project if these are so low) and also raise questions in the assessor’s mind about whether the applicant understands the risks being taken. Of course, there are both “good” and “bad” risks. A good “risk” might be that you are not sure if the innovation will work and your mitigation is to have a great team and the right resources. “Bad” risks would include poor management, lack of required skills or experience, poorly defined route to market etc. Original Published: 7 Jan 2022
by Dr Cait Murray-Green 23 Mar, 2023
I didn’t write anything myself about International Women’s Day. I was at a great event, took part in a very interesting panel discussion for Lanarkshire Councils around Technology businesses and didn’t really get a chance for reflection at the time. Women are held back in terms of business success. We are time poor as we are more likely to have caring duties for children or elderly relatives. Also, we still have to close the gender gap and often we don’t have the same level of exposure to fund raising and to grant writing so access to finance to get any business up and running can be hard. What got me thinking was I wonder how much we ourselves also hold back? Women are more deferential in nature, we are more apologetic and generally we are less confident than our male counterparts. We don’t like to parade our successes and our achievements and we often set the bar for celebration of “good enough” at the “perfection” level. It occurred to me that the marketing concepts of TAM, SAM and SOM are very applicable here. Women often limit themselves to what they feel confident about – markets, knowledge, skills, network – the confidence barrier affects our performance on all those areas. In general we are more skilled than we believe, or accept about ourselves. Our SAM is actually much wider. We often forget about our project management skills from running a household or our negotiations and diplomatic skills gained from persuading toddlers to do what you need them to do. All those transferrable skills make for really good business women. And then there is what we could be capable of. The TAM. We tend to forget about the opportunities of upskilling, the experience we get from overcoming each and every challenge that comes our way. As long as you are working on a business concept that you are passionate about, that means as much as family to you, then you WILL find a way to make it happen. We should focus more on the TAM and believe in the possibility that each and every one of us as business women, leaders or team worker has to offer.
by Dr Cait Murray-Green 06 Mar, 2023
Market Research with SSC
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