USC ETTC’s Commercial Assessment Process (CAP) Introduction
In order for your organization to effectively market its technology portfolio it must have sufficient knowledge of what you are promoting. Product knowledge is key to any sales or marketing effort and if you can’t respond to a prospect’s questions in a reasonable amount of time the prospect is lost. We all know how long the time lag can take between receiving a question from a potential customer and retrieving the answer from the inventor. This time lag often occurs repeatedly during commercialization efforts because of the wide spectrum of questions that can be launched by multiple contacts. This lag time is a serious barrier to an effective technology transfer program and can only be avoided by having the answers to frequently asked questions beforehand. A more efficient technology transfer process can be developed by engaging in more thorough research in the beginning phase of the process.
There are three major components in the Commercial Assessment process; The Intellectual Property (IP) Owner, the Facilitator, and Industry. In order for a facilitator to generate a successful commercial assessment report, they must work closely with both the (IP) owner and industry. Information from both of these groups is crucial. The graphic below describes how information flows during the Commercial Assessment process.
Figure 1: Process Flow
A commercial analysis report can help to develop a strong foundation of knowledge from which to spring marketing efforts. The report can answer the many common questions that may become information requirements down the road. The report will also allow your organization to take a cold hard look at the technologies you are promoting to see if they provide any value to the market. And if they do provide value what markets should be targeted in your marketing efforts? The following list provides further questions the report can answer:
- What applications and industries could this technology provide value to?
- What are the most common questions potential customers will ask?
- What previous marketing efforts have already taken place for this technology?
- What are the benefits of this technology that the market finds most valuable?
- Is the technology unique? Or do competing technologies provide similar benefits?
- Who is the competition? Are they interested?
- Is the industry large enough to support substantial licensing revenues?
- What companies have already expressed an interest in this technology?
The report can answer these questions and act like an archive that documents all the activities, papers and research efforts that have been accomplished for a particular technology. At a later point, managers can find all the information on a technology in one place without having to duplicate previous research. Once your project managers have a completed report they will know exactly which direction to focus marketing efforts. Your managers will now be more effective in targeting potential customers. Money can be saved on patent renewal fees for technologies that have been surpassed in the private sector. Customer questions can quickly be answered without “deal killing” lag times.