Astra Zeneca – University of Bath Innovation Training Course
Course dates: March 21st, 22nd, 23rd 2016
Location: Alexandra House, Swindon
Course outline for prospective participants
Welcome & Introduction
“You can do the best research and be making the strongest intellectual argument, but if readers don't
get past the third paragraph you've wasted your energy and valuable ink.” - Carl Hiaasen
This course will provide you with key skills for the commercialisation of your research, whether it is
attracting internal funding, applying to external funders or seeking venture capital funding. The
training will support you in being able to better communicate the opportunities, impact and
commercial return for “funders” in investing in your work. This will lead you towards having a business
proposition in the form of a short investor pitch, a business plan with a sharp executive summary and
will help you focus on the end goal.
Day 1 – Morning
“It’s all about you” – what does it mean to be an innovator, an entrepreneur or a successful
researcher? Activities and sessions provided to help understanding; the individual, their strengths,
weaknesses and capacity to innovate.
Day 1 – Afternoon
Bringing your Funding / Business Proposition to Life
This session starts from the beginning, your funding idea; we examine what makes a good business
idea, some innovation techniques and the basic requirements of any new business.
Topics:








Idea versus Innovation
What makes a good business idea?
A solution looking for a problem to solve (Aspirin vs Chocolate)
Speed of innovation is accelerating
Identify customers with a problem
Generating ideas from the innovation model
Understanding your USP
What every new venture needs to have: markets, customers, funding and team
Where do customers come from?
Sometimes the simplest questions can ‘torpedo’ the best crafted funding proposal or business plan:
where do your customers come from? This Session will arm you with what you need to build a viable
route to market and monetisation strategy.
Topics:









Understanding markets
Can you create a new market?
Defining market attractiveness
Choosing market segments – quick sector analysis
Product life cycle – behaviour of customers. Behaviour changes.
What are the barriers to adoption?
What is a business model? Examples plus analysing & choosing business models
How will you make money (and your investors return on investment - ROI!) from this?
Exercise: Elevator pitch – your customer proposition
Day 1 – Evening
Business plan & investor presentation coaching session or a presentation on the real world problems
of trying to commercialise an idea.
Day 2 - Morning
Market Analysis of a Business proposition
So how big an opportunity is this? This is one of the first questions that entrepreneurs should ask
themselves as it is certainly one of the first questions that investors / funders will ask them. A clear
vision of the addressable market opportunity is a fundamental building block of the entrepreneurial
business proposition and this interactive session explores how you can gather quickly reliable and
relevant market intelligence using several simple processes. The session compares various approaches
to understand your customers' needs.
Topics













You need to do some market research
Market numbers...don’t just make them up!
Can use reasonable multiplication methods to arrive at a forecast.
Talk to potential customers – use social media – use the phone – use networking events
Web research
Investor relations pages
Independent sources
Customer trials, tests, sampling, drawing ideas from customers use of products
Using the lean approach – to test & prove the concept
Competitive analysis
Scoping your research
Analysis – even with some numbers – you can still be wrong!
Exercise: Market research plan
Day 2 Afternoon
The Anatomy of a Business Proposition
The entrepreneurial business proposition is not a document that’s meant to stay on the bookshelf – it
lives, breathes and constantly changes to address the needs of the audience it’s being presented to.
Whilst it certainly has a definite beginning, middle and end, this Session reveals how the elements of
a business plan interconnect and shows that sometimes it is better to work from the end – your ‘Exit’
– and work backwards!
Topics:




What is a business plan / proposition
The role of the business plan is changing
The ideal business plan structure
The ordering of sections depends on.........
The business plan structure:












The Executive Summary
The problem & business opportunity
Target Market structure & competition
Strategies for Markets, products & services
Your marketing plan
Promoting your product
Proposed products & services
The team (& the Board)
IP assets (if appropriate)
Financial projections
Sound market research, realistic pricing/costs, credible volume forecasts, defendable
timescales all drive the financial projections
The Exit route

Exercise: Develop your own Executive summary
Day 2 Afternoon
Workshop on Business Proposition Financials
Introduction to basics of finance surrounding a business proposition.
Day 2 Evening
Business plan & investor presentation coaching session
Day 3
“Show me the money” – partnership building, building a financial proposition, negotiation and
creating teams to deliver value.
Time to work on your business proposition & investor presentation
Day 3 Afternoon
Investor Pitches
This is your opportunity to pitch to investors and get real-time feedback on your plan. There’s also a
prize for the ‘Best Pitch’.
Speakers / Mentors
For this programme we will use a mix of presenters. Hopefully a couple of sessions presented by
AstraZeneca staff, with invited guests and SETsquared presenting the other sessions.