AGCAS, NCGE and

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AGCAS, NCGE and Enterprise
Case study Coventry University
Dr. Elizabeth Read
Tom Williamson
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Dr. Elizabeth Read

• First and second degrees in Engineering.
• Post Doc at Cambridge University.
• Worked in Japan for 2 years.
• Ran my own engineering business for 3 years.
• Taught Engineering Management and Materials at
  Coventry for 5 years.
• Business Development Manager for Enterprise and
  Entrepreneurship for 2 ½ years.
• Royal Academy of Engineering.

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Business Development Manager for Enterprise and
Entrepreneurship.

• What do we mean by Enterprise Entrepreneurship?
• Lesson learnt agree to disagree !!!
• Where are we now what goes on?
• Enterprise and Entrepreneurship often owns an
  invisibility cloak !!!
• Where do we want to go?
• Enterprise needs an institution wide Strategy.

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Where were we in 2004

• Academic provision
• Over 100 modules across the University that
  contained enterprise.
• Support with in careers
• Business plan competition plus annual festival,
  plus trips and support workshops.
• Technology Park
• Anything that generates income (!)

Silo activity
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What do the customers want - 2005 ?
Tom Williamson

• Coventry University (2003 2006) BA Human
  Resource Management
• Formed Floppynet.co.uk with fellow student in
  2nd year of study
• Generated funding with personal Credit Cards
• Worked an average of 20 hrs / day
• Experienced extremely slow growth due to many
  obvious mistakes
• Had ZERO guidance and advice
• Often struggled to pay own phone/fax bill due to
  business use.

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First Steps

• Link the academic activity to the careers
  activity allowing course works as entry to the
  Business Plan Competition.
• Reducing the number of modules that used the term
  enterprise but refining those that did.
• Transferring some of the workshops into academic
  lectures to support academics whilst promoting
  enterprise.

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Did it Work?
YES

• Highest number of entries into the Business Plan
  Competition in the West Midlands.
• Coventry competition won by Engineers for the
  first time.
• VC agreed to award Entrepreneur of the year for
  the first time.
• Biggest attendance at the Festival to date.

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Back to Tom. . . . . . .

• Awarded Coventry University Entrepreneur of the
  Year 2006
• President of Coventry University Enterprise
  Society (2006 Present)
• Achieved 1st Class BA despite problems
• Joined CU Business Enterprise Support Team as
  a research assistant

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Issues for Students
Issues for Institution

• Finance
• Resources
• Mentoring
• Product Development
• Time (Management)
• Networks
• Physical Space
• Business Address
• Lack of visibility of support available

• IPR
• Ethical Issues
• Ownership
• Students Leaving Prematurely
• Deliverables (learning experience vs. commercial)

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What next?

• Tackle the students issues.
• Tackle the institutions issues.
• Support students in developing their enterprise
  skills.
• Support students if they wanted to set up a
  business.

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NCGE what happens when a student arrives at
careers?
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Initial Processes Interview Questions

• Basic demographic identifiers
• Is the business a product or a service?
• Is the business active? How active?
• What is the idea?
• Is it an individual or team operated business?
• Are all members Students?
• What year of study is the student?
• What degree program is being studied?
• What faculty does the student belong to?

Allows advisor to place them in 1 of 6 categories
Use for records and monitoring deals
Institutional Issues such as ethics and IPR.
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• SPEEd Program

• Enterprise Society

• Scholarships

• Student Business Support Unit

Start up Cafe
Young Enterprise
Business Plan Comp.
SBSU, SPEEd
Professional Mentors through SBSU
Entrepreneur in Residence, Entrepreneur of the
year.
Working with Academics Course works
Idea generation workshops
Add Vantage Modules, Enterprise Degree
developed with careers by academics (!) Credits
for business activity. Course Works.
Enterprise Society
BRE plus external contacts
Enterprise Week

• SPEEd Program

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External Support developed by the Universitys
Business Development Managers

• Business Link
• Chamber of Commerce
• Local Banks
• BRE Business Networking Organisations
• Local Businesses (i.e. accountants, solicitors
  etc)
• Business / Enterprise Park
• Enterprise Insight (Enterprise Week)
• Inland Revenue
• Companies House
• NCGE
• Shell Livewire
• B2B Exhibitions

But - Has the student experience changed?
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David Wick

• 1st Year Engineering Student
• Arrived to Coventry with 1 business
  Memorabilia F1
• Joined Students in Business (Enterprise Society)
  support for business 1
• Joined AddVantage Module for Sustainable
  Business Management
• Submitted entry to BizCom idea for business 2
• Arranged 1-2-1s with Tom Williamson
• Joined SPEEd with new business Memorabilia
  Moto development of business 2
• Awarded Entrepreneur of the Year 2006/07
  recognition of achievement commitment to
  support the agenda.
• Became manager of Bio-Tech Racing Business 3
  (!)
• Attended BRE meetings and joined Ecademy

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Key Lessons

• Where are you as an Institution?
• Where do you as an Institution want to be?
• Work as a team.
• Brand it where ever it lives and who ever funds
  it.
• Feed back to
• Tom Williamson
• e - t.williamson_at_coventry.ac.uk
• m - 0797 498 4337