Perspectives on Innovation

We recently announced the posting of the first InnoCentive for Startups Challenge, called “The Internet of Things“, by Precyse Technologies. We asked John Stopper, Co-Founder, CEO and President, to talk to us a bit about the Challenge and about being InnoCentive’s first InnoCentive for Startups Seeker.

Precyse Technologies is leveraging InnoCentive’s open innovation solution for startup companies. How will this benefit small companies? Would you recommend this?

Shifting from core product development to the high-growth stage in a startup’s evolution requires the company to scale rapidly while maintaining a lean and flexible structure. InnoCentive’s new offering targeted at startups allowed us to gain immediate access to a global talent base at a dramatically lower price point compared to the classical model of recruitment, training and execution. The InnoCentive approach also gave us greater control to sort through the different solver solutions, picking the best of breed approach with a very short time to market. The price advantage, time to market, control over the solution and the immediate access we gained to a global talent base makes InnoCentive a great choice for Precyse, both in the R&D and in the business development domains. I would recommend InnoCentive for startups to any company focusing on rapidly growing its market and product offering while maintaining an innovation advantage.

Your current Business Challenge is called “Enabling the Internet of Things“. Can you please explain the meaning behind the name, and explain a little bit about the Challenge.

Precyse offers its customers a wireless network solution, dedicated for asset and machine communications. This asset network allows inanimate objects, such as engines on an automotive manufacturer’s line, to wirelessly communicate their location, sensory status and even get remote instructions to take action. N3, the first bi-directional, wireless asset network standard from Precyse takes a lip forward in RFID evolution. Coupled with the Precyse Smart Agent, a ‘cell phone” build for assets, Precyse offers an out-of-the-box solution with the promise to build a world of networked and interconnected made-smart devices. Everything from engine parts, home appliances or cars may be in communications range, heralding the dawn of a new era; one in which today’s Internet (of data and people) gives way to tomorrow’s Internet of Things.

Following a successful technology cooperation with SAP, we decided to launch a first business challenge in the SAP pavilion on InnoCentive. The objective of this challenge is to identify exciting new opportunities, integrating the Precyse real time asset visibility product suite with legacy software solutions from leading supply-chain management vendors. We wish to incentive the community to help us indentify new partners and new end-customer opportunities, embracing this innovative approach for real-time supply chain visibility.

What appealed to you about posting your Challenge on InnoCentive?

We are always searching for new and innovative ways to enable fast growth and a smarter use of the company’s capital resources. Precyse found both with the Innocentive offering for startups. The impressive short term impact we experienced and the excellent support we have been receiving from the InnoCentive team contributed to making this a successful experience – one I would recommend to any fast-growth business to explore.

Trevor Rose, an entrepreneur from Australia with a background in engineering and computer science is one of the winning Solvers of the Improving Banking Processes in the Developing World Challenge.

I have worked in over 60 jobs in my life, so as I was writing this personal profile and looking at the other Solver profiles, I couldn’t think of a line that says “I am this”, because I have done a million & one tiny little things, none of which was really a career in the way most people experience (meaning the money was absolute rubbish).

Only in the last decade did I decide to become TRULY impoverished by becoming a mature age student & attending university to study engineering & computer science, running up a massive bill with the government.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford to finish, and the university in question wasn’t turning out to be quite the value for money I’d hoped, so I decided to go back to the workforce.   (Ok, I’ll be honest… I had NO OPTION but to go back to the workforce, which seemed strange as this was simultaneous to a million news reports about how Australia is so short of professional engineers & other technically trained people, and I spent a good deal of time wondering why it never occurs to the decision makers to just support people through education properly, and voilá problem solved. But then hey, what would I know?)

One day I was perusing the InnoCentive web site and saw the Challenge about improving banking processes in the developing world.  I thought it sounded like an interesting problem, and it didn’t take specialist knowledge in fields that I don’t have enough of a clue about to even attempt solving.   Then when I read the further details, it just started me thinking, and before I knew it, there I was writing down the solution that came to mind.  (ok, it took a bit of scribbling on paper & drawing diagrams & nutting things over… but that’s part of the process I get hooked on & why I love to solve problems)  I do like the possibility that something I thought of might help someone in a country where the economy is very tough already, and perhaps make their lives easier in some way… i hope so… but it wasn’t the reason for attempting the Challenge.  I like the idea of being an InnoCentive Solver because for me it’s like a little billboard that will say to those who doubted me in life, that maybe they are wrong and I am a lot cleverer than I look.  

My next project is to get my own business going.   I’m hoping that this will allow me to do 3 main things:

I don’t have a website up & running yet for my business, but anyone who is interested in having a fresh perspective on their business, and maybe discussing some ideas for areas of potential improvement can contact me tarose.trevor@gmail.com.  I need to build up some further case studies to publish, so I would be happy to have a look into what you are doing and where you think it’s all coming unstuck.