Business Innovation Generation (BIG) event for West Cork SMEs

The WCDP, in conjunction with the Institute of Business Development and Competitiveness (IBDC) at the School of Economics, UCC announces BIG – a unique event to explore the themes of Innovation and Competitiveness for SMEs in West Cork.

The headline events, facilitated by staff from the Institute, take place in September and will challenge assumptions held about innovation, the market, and resources for growth in the context of West Cork’s peripheral location at this time of economic crisis.

You are invited to register to attend either of the following headline events:

Date:       Thursday, 6th September
Venue:    Maritime Hotel, Bantry
Time:       7.15pm – 9.30pm

OR

Date:       Thursday, 13th September
Venue:    Inchydoney Hotel, Clonakilty
Time:       7.15pm – 9.30pm

Attendance at a headline event is by registration only and is limited to 50 people each night. There is no charge.
Contact David Tuohy or Katie Connolly on 023 8834035 or email david@wcdp.ie for an application form. 

Attendees will also be invited to express an interest in participating in the BIG Programme to develop a mind-set change in order to harness and exploit for innovation their knowledge of their businesses, markets, resources and products/services. This will involve a programme of 8 workshops running from October to February for a small number of businesses facilitated by the IBDC. There are only 12 places on the programme, however we will run it a second time in the new year, subject to demand. (more details below).

UCC staff delivering the headline event and the BIG Programme are Dr. Eoin O’Leary (Senior Lecturer Economics), Dr. Declan Jordan (College Lecturer Economics), Dr. Eleanor Doyle (Senior Lecturer Economics), Owen O’Brien (Lecturer Economics, Entrpreneur).

The BIG Programme – a Brief Outline

Beginning mid-October, workshops will take place fortnightly from 9am to 1pm. Dates will be confirmed at the headline event. To allow for the peak in trading around the Christmas period there will be no workshops during December.

1.The Innovator’s Mind Set (One workshop)

• Challenging assumptions about innovation, the market, resources for growth and change and the location of rural-based enterprises in West Cork.
• Introducing the reflective practitioner.
• Ground-clearing and introduction to the challenge of innovation.

2. The Innovator’s Toolkit (Three workshops)

• Using Drucker’s Five Questions as the core theme to explore participants’ businesses, markets, resources and opportunities.
• Using business frameworks to answer Drucker’s Five Questions for participants’ businesses.
• Challenging each participant to surface their own theory of the business, using frameworks such as PESTEL, Porter’s 5-Forces, Value Chain, Core Competencies and the Balanced Scorecard.

Participants will receive a complimentary copy of The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization by Peter Drucker

3. The Value Proposition (One workshop)

• Frameworks for identifying opportunities for innovation through unmet customer needs and market opportunities.
• Uncovering opportunities in resource/capability constraints.
• Drucker‟s sources of opportunity

4. The Ideas Mill (One workshop)

• Using the tools of ideation to generate solutions to market opportunities.
• Addressing the opportunities in unused resources to innovate.

5. The Ideas Filter (One workshop)

• Finding ideas that work. Developing subjective criteria for idea evaluation.
• Formulating safe tests.

6. The Safe Test (One workshop)

• Frameworks for designing, testing, dropping and/or improving ideas.
• Acting on feedback from stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, employees.

We look forward to hearing from you.