Innovation Strategies for Venture Capital Portfolio Companies

Innovation Strategies for Resilience

Your individual presentation will be completed as a pre-recorded video submitted through Blackboard.

You are a researcher at “Bridge Capital” a (fictional) venture capital company. Bridge Capital has numerous companies in their portfolio, spanning many different industry sectors. The board are worried about the effect of the Covid19 pandemic, they have decided that a way to be more resilient to the uncertain future is to advise the companies in their portfolio to be more innovative.

You have been tasked with developing an overall innovation strategy for the portfolio, which can enable each company within the portfolio to develop their own innovation strategy best suited to their needs.

You should consider a range of recommendations which can be applied to a variety of organisations (size, sector, stage of development etc) organisations, recognising that private equity portfolios can contain a wide variety of companies.

You are to present a video to the board covering the following questions:

1) What are some innovation strategies that are in use today and what are their strengths and weaknesses?

2) Are there any examples of companies that have put these strategies to good use?

3) What determining factors should be used when deciding which strategy is most suitable?

4) Are there any examples of companies using the wrong innovation strategy?

5) Are there any situations where two or more strategies might be combined?

By the end of the presentation, each company in the portfolio will be able to work out the best innovation strategy for their own situation.

Notes:

• You do not have to cover every single innovation strategy from the course.

• You do not have to give equal weight/time to each strategy you cover.

You must critically research and apply in your presentation relevant academic theory and sources, course concepts and frameworks and industry material.

Your work must be fully referenced using the Harvard system.

Rules for the Video Presentation

These are set out in the Assessment folder on your module pages, but, as with all presentations, you must begin your video presentation with a slide with the following information on it –

• Title

• Module

• Your name

• Student number

Full instructions on making and submitting the video are also provided in the Assessment folder on your module pages, with support provided up to the submission deadline.

PART B: Individual written coursework of 2,000 words

You are working for a SME owned in part by Bridge Capital. Bridge would like to make sure that you are able to innovate in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. They have sent you a presentation explaining different innovation strategies, along with guidance on how to choose an appropriate strategy.

You want to raise extra capital from Bridge, so as CEO you have reviewed the video and decided on an innovation strategy.

You have decided to propose a technology-based innovation which could create a high degree of added value in a postCovid19 economy.

You now need to write a 2000-word report to send back to Bridge Capital, detailing your tech-based innovation. You should also explain what strategy/strategies you chose and why.

As part of this task you are required to respond to the following:

1) Describe and evaluate an opportunity or issue which may warrant a technology-based innovation

2) Explain your solution in a reasonable amount of detail and briefly explain what type of innovation it is.

3) Describe your innovation strategy chosen from part A potentially highlight how it disrupts/avoids potential competitors/substitutes

4) Outline the potential ethical issues which may occur due to your proposed technology-based innovation.

5) Critically assess how you would protect the new innovation.

Notes:

• You are free to invent a company in any industry you choose, or you can base your report on an existing company that you are familiar with.

• When writing, you may decide on an innovation strategy and then invent a company with features that fit.

• Or you can invent/pick a company, and then pick the best strategy based on the ideas you outlined in part A.

• It is expected that you will have to do some research into your chosen technology beyond what is covered in the course lectures.