Global Innovation: Developing Your Business For A Global Market

By Jonathan Reuvid

Companies planning to expand their export business base or to enter international markets for the first time need to focus their strengths and match them with market opportunities.

The process of interaction, integration between people, companies, governments and nations is driven by international trade and investment, which in turn is aided by technology and innovation. A company’s success is likely to be founded or reinforced by innovation which will need to be protected and supported by expert advice or partnerships. Global Innovation offers encouragement to innovators, advice on essential preparation for exporters and export strategy including a five-point approach to identifying priority markets.

The book is spilt into three parts:

• Part One: ENCOURAGING INNOVATORS
• Part Two: PREPARING TO EXPORT
• Part Three: ADDRESSING TARGET MARKETS.

The book also includes details of priority markets for export such as United States, France, Japan, Germany, China and more. With foreword by Chris Southworth, Secretary General, ICC United Kingdom and contribution from key industry experts such as Coventry University, Basck, BExA, Patentgate, TAIO, and Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply to name a few, this is an indispensable guide for business to expand their goods, services, process and IP’s into the global market.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Legend Press
• Release date: Jul 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781787198593

Book preview

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PART ONE

ENCOURAGING INNOVATORS

1.1

SPACE, HEALTH AND ENERGY – HOW MULTI-SECTORAL COLLABORATION IS FUELLING INNOVATION

Dr Barbara Ghinelli, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus

It is not uncommon for technology originally developed in one sector to find application in other industries. As a sector blooms, so does the pressure to innovate, and this creates a rich source of technology that becomes more accessible to communities outside of specialist teams. Opportunities for putting the technology to use in other industries accelerates considerably, resulting in the creation of new businesses and opening up new market opportunities for companies in those sectors.

An oft-quoted example is the Apollo moon programme, and today the space sector is again experiencing rapid growth in relation to investment and commercial interest as the possibilities and opportunities it wields become more widely known. Increasingly it is realised that science and technology should not be siloed, and healthcare and energy are two sectors taking full advantage of the opportunities for collaboration that this approach presents. Examples include the European Space Agency (ESA) developing suits with embedded biomedical sensors to study how the human body responds to living in space – technology that led to the creation of a baby monitoring system to protect against cot deaths. Similarly, microbiological sensors for space applications are being used to detect contamination for better water treatment, and NASA’s handling of hydrogen paved the way for developing light-weight hydrogen tanks for environmentally friendly cars.

Innovative thinkers and business leaders are no strangers to seeing the potential of technology from one sector being applied to another. Looking further into the crossover between space and health technology, there are applications in ultra-light robots for surgery and the production of artificial organs and prostheses. Previous uses also include a ‘pill camera’ developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute that can be swallowed by patients, dementia-tracking slippers which use GPS, and technology developed for space travel being used for breast-screening vans.

Technologies developed for the space sector are improving our daily lives and, as they rapidly pervade the healthcare sector and others, we are beginning to see more cases that demonstrate its positive presence, and positive return for the businesses with the vision to seize on these commercial opportunities. For example, earlier this year the UK Space Agency granted Adaptix £1m in funding to develop a pioneering portable 3D medical X-ray machine, based on technology used to study stars in distant galaxies. Working on Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, the scientists realised that, as well as providing access to previously unreachable parts of our universe, the technology will allow doctors to get a more comprehensive view of areas where they suspect tumours are growing, aiding more effective treatment and earlier diagnosis. Health and space-heritage technology may seem an unlikely partnership, but it is one that has led directly to life-saving technology and commercial returns.

Many other examples exist where technology originally developed for space exploration has been put to good use in healthcare. For instance, by adapting a small 3D Camera originally designed for investigating scientific samples on the moon, start-up 3D-oscopy has created an endoscope camera that can quickly record and digitally recreate a human digestive tract. For the clinicians, it means they can examine detailed footage of the tract off-line, rather than in real-time while the camera is inside the patient, with quantification tools to further inform their recommendations on surgery and treatments. For the patients, this means endoscopy time is drastically reduced, only requiring the camera to make one pass into and out of the tract, recording all and any features. For the health-care system, it means shorter waiting times, more efficient use of funds and better patient