From deep science to a cool product

Prof Henning Sirringhaus from the Cavendish Labs at Cambridge, Martin Jackson of Plastic Logic and Bill Earner of Amadeus Capital Partners talked to a packed audience of around 400 graduates and members of the business community on how and why they have taken a tough 10 year+ journey to commercialise deep science.
From what I could gather, it started with the scientists looking at how to take the technical attributes of passing light through plastic and the convenience of plastic (it is light and flexible) to see if a product could be developed. One of the driving forces of the innovation that followed seems to be about solving the problem of convenience for people on the move.
People who need to read books, documents, articles, newspapers and myriad other content have two choices at the moment. Carrying heavy quantities of documents or trying to read on laptops – where due to the intensity of the way the screen is backlit – in the end it gets tiring. The inventors, investors and management of the project saw this as a global unmet need.
Curiously so have Sony, Kindle and others who are all rushing to market with eReaders. After the iphone this product line is likely to be the next big thing in the “boys toys” category and will likely revolutionise our reading behaviours as prices come plummeting downward in the years ahead.
So – the journey of plastic electronics as it has been labelled – started a long time ago and the team made a choice to enter the market with an eReader – due to be launched at a major event in January 2010. Hopefully they are just in time when compared to other products that are coming out this winter – before the Christmas of 2009.
The team has bigger plans for their patents and inventions, but the story is not so much about technology as it is about faith, belief, entrepreneurial risk and talented people.
The early conversations between Henning, Sir Richard Friend and Dr Hermann Hauser were formative and influential. All three eminent being physicists. Hermann being the serial entrepreneur and venture capitalists has the experience and instinct to know when to back something. It is also his vision for the next big product – and the potential to create an industry that has helped to raise over $250m dollars, research grants and subsidies for setting up a factory in Dresden. With that strong vision and business credibility, the team also has its “scientific rock stars” – some early exposure to doing business in emerging technologies and gradually a build up of a strong commercial and manufacturing team. It is probably this combination that has allowed Plastic Logic to go further than might be expected for a company that has been in “start-up” mode for over 10 years.
Over the 10 years Plastic Logic has tried a variety of business models, including trying to license the technology, but found that because it was unproven, the big manufacturers were unwilling to take it on. As a result of this market feedback, the team decided to set up its own factory and were fortunate in finding support from the government in Saxony - keen to attract a cutting edge science based company. So – the focus is on scaling up from a laboratory project about the light emitting properties of plastic to a real product that consumers can buy! This is a huge transition and requires major shifts in the talent pool from scientists through project managers, sales teams, factory skills, etc.,
How does a team sustain its motivation to go through all the various change points from a scientific breakthrough in 1998/99 to the prospect of a product launch into a growing market in 2010?
The basic answer seems to be about the excitement of creating an industry through the launch of a product. In essence – where the scale and scope of the opportunity far outweighs any sense of barriers or risk! The opportunity is seen to be vast and the team wants to be in a leadership position!
My main takeaway thought was the comment that Henning made – when the whole enterprise started he asked himself – should he focus on publishing and staying “Pure” or should he devote any time to the venturing process. At the time he was an unestablished young academic. He chose to do both! Now he is a young professor, inventor and initiator of a company that could well turn out to be at the forefront of plastic electronics. As Prof Andy Hopper said last year and on the video (see www.cfel.jbs.cam.ac.uk/resources) you can have your cake and eat it!

Understanding the needs of the market – Learning from Ryanair

Tuesday on October 27th 2009. See www.cfel.jbs.cam.ac.uk

Kell Ryan, the recently retired marketing Director of Ryanair has kindly agreed to speak to the audience of Enterprise Tuesday on the 27th of October 2009. Kell is a highly experienced marketing professional, having worked in the airline industry for many years before joining the team at Ryanair.

Ryanair has been a great success as a low cost carrier. It has brought benefits to many people beyond price reduction. People can take short term jobs in other countries; get short week end breaks, host hen nights and parties in all manner of cities, bringing tourism wealth from those who have to those who can benefit! If we want to learn to think about marketing, customers needs and having the courage to make new rules in the market place – we need to look at how one of the more successful companies does it.

Kell Ryan has agreed to tell us about the early days of Ryanair marketing, their innovations and how they value both acquiring and retaining customers through meeting the key needs of customers. Importance of customer retention, Impact of the Internet, Ancillary revenue /activity, Innovation on costs, Business model, Simplicity of Operations, Branding /Marketing and that Price is King !

Kell is charming and you will learn from him the hard nosed lessons you need to take away about how to be innovative with marketing. These lessons will generalise to other industry sectors. I can’t wait to hear from him. I hold the Otto Monsted Guest Professorship at Aarhus School of Business in Denmark and it is only possible for me to even consider such a post and to deliver on it through the growth and development of Ryanair.