
New ideas are essential to support the economic growth and societal development we want for Newcastle and the North East. However, ideas don’t achieve much on their own – there has to be the ability, motivation and resource to turn it into a viable business.
This is our definition of innovation – the conversion of an inventive idea into a commercially successful and sustainable proposition.
Some ideas are better suited to this process than others. Through research into past business success stories, combined with our experiences in helping hundreds of companies launch new products and services, we’ve concluded that there are four basic elements to successful innovation:
- A clearly identified unmet customer need. This means that you need to understand your target customers better than anyone else, that you must know their problems and what they aspire towards – this way you can be sure that the solutions you come up with have a ready market.
- An inventive way of meeting the customer need. This doesn’t have to be an amazingly complex idea – in fact, it’s often better if it’s simple, low risk and uses current technology in a clever way.
- A scalable solution that can reach many customers with little additional cost after initial development.
- A strong team of people motivated to take the business forward.
We can work with you to improve your chances of success, raise finance, avoid the worst pitfalls, get your product to market quickly and maximise profits along the way.
How we can help
Identify market opportunities
Innovate through developing solutions to market opportunities identified, validated and published by Science City – find out more about our Opportunity Canvas Programme here.
Understand your customers
Innovate through identifying unmet needs in your sector
Develop and test solutions
Innovate through developing new solutions to unmet needs
Protect your solutions
Protect your innovation through working with intellectual property experts
Develop and refine your business model
Innovate through better business models, focusing on growth, risk and sustainability
Secure finance
Loans and investment finance are available for innovative businesses
Build a strong team
Innovative businesses need strong and balanced management teams to succeed
Get to market
Innovative businesses face unique challenges in accessing new and growing markets