What we do: Project VIA
Project VIA – Valuing Intellectual Assets
Project VIA - Valuing Intellectual Assets - was a unique programme offered by the Intellectual Assets Centre and funded by European Regional Development Fund and Scottish Government. The project for 2009-10 working with Highlands and Islands based renewable energy sector companies ended in June 2010. Following an audit on the project by the European Social Fund, in October 2010, additional funding was awarded to continue the project work with recruited companies until March 2011.
Each Project VIA is delivered by industry experts through a series of Workshops and Masterclasses and is designed to raise awareness among participants of the importance of intellectual assets and the role these assets can play in supporting business development and innovation. It offers participants an opportunity to focus on critical business areas such as:
• Brand development and protection
• Creation of new processes, products and revenue streams
• Marketing Strategies
Workshops and Masterclasses
Each year in Project VIA we tailor the Workshops and Masterclasses to the needs of the participating companies. Companies are encourage to use IA Centre tools throughout the period of the project to get to the heart of any organisation’s IA Management issues and identify strengths and weaknesses. Participating companies are taken through the IA Centre’s Benchmarking Tool by their assigned consultant at the start of the project and continue to work with this consultant on a 1:1 basis throughout the period of the project to develop their unique IA Action Plans and ensure that their company needs are met and expectations exceeded by the Project. We want our project companies to make demands of us and we thrive on rising to the challenges that they present us!
The Workshop programme for VIA Renewables included looking at Business Model Innovation, Maximising IA in e-business and Developing your Brand.
Where vacancies exist in the projects, companies in Project VIA are able to join the project at any time and we run Catch-up Workshops to cover an activity that may have already taken place before a company joined the project.
Masterclasses are presented by IA experts and Project VIA Renewables companies benefitted from attending the IA Centre's annual Supplier Gathering Event, held in Edinburgh in December 2009, where companies were able to hear from Tim Harford ("The Undercover Economist"), David Gurteen of Gurteen Knowledge and Ian Brinkley of The Work Foundation. Presentations from this event are available on the Events Page of the IA Centre's website.
What Project VIA Renewables Companies said about us...
“When Project VIA came along, its aims struck a chord. Although I didn’t have the vocabulary or knowledge of IA, I instinctively felt that Chillwind was vulnerable and that we could be doing much more to protect & develop the skills & know-how we’d accumulated. Now we have the tools to do just that. It’s been both an exciting and uncomfortable learning process; the more we know about Intellectual Asset Management (IAM), the more we realise what we need to do!” Richard Tarves, Managing Director, Chillwind
Before starting the project, Intellectual Assets is something I have never given any thought to at all, and even when I had done the first benchmark exercise, I still thought that this does not apply to our company. I guess it was only once I had attended the first master class that it was a bit of a light bulb moment and I thought, well we do this or we could do that, and everything started to fall into place.
One of the most important things that I got from the project was realising the company’s self worth, especially when dealing with PQQs. This very much came to fruition when just several days after the Masterclass in this we had to
complete a PQQ for one of the biggest contracts we have tried to tender for yet. After several nail biting weeks of waiting it was announced that Currie Brothers were the only local company to meet the criteria and be able to
tender for and win this project.” Susan Learmonth, Currie Brothers.
“Having only paid passing notice to the notion of our Intellectual Property before, the work we have done with the IA Centre has completely changed our attitude. As a company most of our value is related to our knowledge and skills
and we are far more aware of how to protect them. Specifically, IA centre representatives have given us extremely valuable input and clear advice on which actions to take to maximise the value and protect our IA in everything from marketing to engineering designs. This has also enabled us to understand the value of our IA and how to use them to strengthen our brand’.” Bruno Berardelli, Managing Director, HWE
“Project VIA expertise and support has been invaluable to ALIenergy throughout the process of evaluating our intellectual assets and business model. The VIA team and training programme provided the impetus to begin the ongoing task of harnessing and developing the skills and assets we possess to provide the most comprehensive and sustainable level of service possible to the Argyll Lomond and the Islands area we cover”. Andrew Hodge, ALIenergy,
Project VIA 2008 (Software Companies)
For Project VIA 2008 we ran 3 interactive Workshops and 4 Masterclasses across the Highlands and Islands and the outline programme is shown below:
Workshop 1 “Marketing: Market Verification and The Proposition” Benny Placido and Tim Sandford of Market Transformations www.markettransformations.com
Masterclass 1 “Natural Born Sellers” led by Fiach Maguire a Consultant with Alttitude, www.alttitude.mmidev.co.uk
Workshop 2 “Project Management for Product Development” Dr Gordon McNeilly of MayTay Medical www.maytay.eu and “Strategic Marketing for Software SMEs” Karen Hewitt of Ogam Insight www.ogaminsight.com
Masterclass 2 was held in Cafe Arriba, Portree where the delegates were able to enjoy both an excellent menu of Mexican food and the stimulating Masterclass delivered by Ian Ritchie of Coppertop www.coppertop.co.uk and Ralph Averbuch of Electric News Network, www enn.ie on "Why Remote Location is not a Barrier to International Trade".
Workshop 3 “IA Licensing” Lorne Byatt and Dr Michael Ellis of Ellis IP and Associates www.ellis-ip.co.uk
Masterclass 3 The Masterclass for Project VIA was jointly led by Maureen Kinsler of Marks & Clerk www.marks-clerk.com, a leading Scottish patent attorney specialising in patenting of inventions embodied in software, and Gerry Gavigan the Chairman of the Open Source Consortium www.opensourceconsortium.org
As a result of Masterclass 3, an outline of Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) has been produced which consists of two sections. Section 1 provides a general introduction and background to FLOSS and Section 2 consists of a Q&A session between Project VIA companies and Gerry Gavigan of the Open Source Consortium. This resource is available here.
Dissemination Event The interim results of Project VIA were revealed in a Dissemination Event held alongside the IA Centre’s 3rd International Congress and IFKAD ’09 on the 18th February 2009.
Masterclass 4 The Final Networking Event for the Project Companies was held at Glenmoriston Town House in Inverness on the 17th of March, where companies participated in an IA Masterclass led by the IA Centre Director Iain Russell.
"I found real value in this project since it covered all aspects of Intellectual Assets, like business processes and market knowledge. The workshops were particularly useful bringing a new perspective to the practicalities of marketing, product and project management." Mike Robertson, 4QL, Orkney
Some of the benefits of managing your intellectual assets...what the companies said about the project
“The VIA project has helped me broaden my perception of intellectual assets beyond just intellectual property to all areas of the business. This brings home just how much of the businesses intellectual assets are bound up in the people who work here, because no matter how much is documented it is the people that make it work.” Mark Hinton, Managing Director, Kildrummy, Shetland
“We have used IA techniques to systematically address the issues that were slowing the growth of the business and have focused on developing better strategic partnerships, improving internal processes and increasing customer satisfaction and retention. This is all with a view to establishing a stronger position within our target market.” Campbell Grant, Managing Director, Sitekit Solutions, Skye
If you would be interested in participating and want to find out more information about the programme, please complete our Contact Us Form, email your contact details to the IA Centre at info@ia-centre.org.uk
Some more info is available in the FAQ leaflet, downloadable below.
Case Studies 2008
Here are the case studies about some companies who participated in the VIA project in 2008.
'Valuing IA in Software Companies' FAQ leaflet
This leaflet answers some of the frequently asked questions about the project
Case Studies 2007
Here are the case studies about some companies who participated in the VIA project in 2007.
