Small Business Consultancy Results
Published 2 August 2011
As part of the Innovation for Growth business support programme, three ex IEED placement students have been reunited to form a consultancy team to aid SMEs with their marketing, research and new venture planning projects.
DRM
DRM manufacture bespoke specialist technical textiles. Recently 
they have developed a unique new product to help dewater sediment in a more environmentally friendly and cost effective way, the Sedi-Filter. They wanted to look into further sectors that the Sedi-Filter could be marketed to and which marketing strategy would be best for each.
While researching competitors we found no direct competition in the UK although overseas competitors allowed us to benchmark against them. A spread of sectors were contacted informing them about the product and gaining information about their current processes of dewatering material, dredging or holding sediment.
Results
Although contacting companies and organisations has a varied success rate, some results are golden. Contacts found for DRM included an English Heritage property that had a pond that needed de-silting (possibly an instant sale), a large national civil engineering group (potential long term collaboration) and an interested golf course designer (a completely new sector). Along with these contacts, recommendations were given as to the best approach to take in terms of service and package availability.
iSoSec
iSoSec, based at Daresbury Science and Innovation Centre, 
create software to help organisations manage their information and its users; with particular emphasis on security and protection. They had recently seen a potential opportunity to create a student dashboard to allow students, teachers and parents to all access information online.
Research was undertaken to further explore this idea, in particular the current products already available and the extended features that such a dashboard could have. Each of the main competitors found was given a detailed analysis explaining their advantages and disadvantages while schools were contacted to find out what systems they used as well as the costs and benefits associated with them.
Results
The outcome of the project was valuable in a different way than first expected. The overall opinion was that the market was heading toward saturation with many competitors as well as the majority of secondary schools already implementing similar systems recently and being unlikely to swap providers. Therefore for a successful launch the product would have to be very different and offer unique features. iSoSec saved time, resources and money that would have been used launching a product in a highly competitive market
How could your business benefit from this free service?
You can find more information about the Innovation for Growth programme at www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/ifg
Find out which student projects are currently available at http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/events/entrep/22809/
How could your business benefit from this free service?
You can find more information about the Innovation for Growth programme at www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/ifg
Find out which student projects are currently available at http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/departments/Entrep/Projects/studentprojects/current-student-project-opportunities/
