by Toshihiko Ishii, Senior Executive Researcher, New Business Creation Consulting

 

(The original article in Japanese was posted in June 2022)

Yano Research Institute Ltd. supports startup companies’ and small and medium-sized enterprises’ marketing activities for new technologies developed by them, at the request of public organizations. Specifically, we provide advice and guidance on how to promote new technologies developed by startup companies and small and medium-sized enterprises (or “companies to be supported”), and also assist in business matchmaking by searching for companies that are interested in such new technologies (or “target companies”).

The total number of startup companies and small and medium-sized enterprises that we have supported so far is more than 100, and those companies that have “successfully concluded a contract” (the rate of successful contracts) is approximately 25%.

The important point in the case of the service to support such business matchmaking is how to define the meaning of “successful contracts.” There are often cases where the conclusion of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is included in the “successful contracts.” However, since there are many cases where partnership business is not realized as a result of consideration even after the conclusion of a NDA, such cases should not be called “successful contracts” in the essential meaning. Therefore, we do not include the conclusion of an NDA in “successful contracts” but define them as ones in which business profits have been made in some way.

As described above, we use the rate of successful contracts based on the sales as a performance indicator in our business matchmaking support service. This figure has been about 25% cumulatively to date in total, which can be said to be reasonably high.

We believe that we have achieved such high figure because we support small and medium-sized enterprises and the like with the following points in mind.

 

Identifying and Setting Selection Criteria for the Target Companies whose Business and Demands Match the Technology Contents

Whether we are able to find and set a company to be a business partner (= a target) whose business and demand suit the content of the technology of the company to be supported is very important to increase the rate of successful contracts.

First, when considering which company to be the target, we must confirm the intention and the goal of the company to be supported at an early stage.

Next, we consider whether the intention and the goal are appropriate. If there is no problem, we start preparing a good approach according to the intention and the goal. On the other hand, if they do not seem to be proper for the technology, or if there seems to be a better industry or field to be the target, we propose other target field/fields or the like.

Since an appropriate proposal tends to lead to a successful contract, we believe that it is very important to appropriately set a target company whose business is relevant to the content of the technology to increase the rate of successful contracts.

Listed below are examples of successfully concluded contracts due to our appropriate proposals.

 

1. Company A: a company that has developed a technology to simply evaluate the state of plasma distribution or the like

Company A developed the technology to simply evaluate the state of plasma distribution, etc.

Company A’s initial target to utilize its technology together was the company that had installed a plasma irradiation device. This company is a downstream operator in the supply chain process. However, since it could not be known whether or not the said device had been installed or not in the target company until an individual contact was made, it was inefficient for Yano and Company A to move toward a successful contract, and the target seemed to be unsuitable for Company A’s business partner.

Therefore, we suggested to Company A that it might be better to get in touch with plasma irradiation device manufacturers, which are upstream operators, rather than downstream operators.

As a result, Company A has successfully concluded contracts with four companies.

 

2. Company B: a company that has developed a particle coating device

Company B had been originally developing a device for the industry D as the target market. However, in the initial stage of our support, the company said that they were not sure what kind of industries would be suitable for the device to be used in, although it was believed that there were other field/fields of application of the device besides the industry D.

In the case of this technology, since the strength was coating of fine particles, research was conducted based on the following viewpoint: Which other industries are using the particles of almost the same size as those used in the industry D?

The research results indicated that the industries E, F, and were considered to be the fields of application of the device. Thus, we contacted companies in these industries as well.

Consequently, companies in industries E and F showed interest in the technology of Company B, resulting in Company B concluding successful contracts with two companies.

 

3. Company C: a company that has developed a business model to utilize surplus electricity from renewable energy

Company C has developed a business model that enables maximum use of renewable energy by making surplus electricity from renewable energy, which had conventionally been discarded, accessible to data centers and other facilities that consume a lot of electricity.

In the beginning, Company C mentioned “data center operators” and “electric power companies” as possible business partners. However, we suggested that they should also include “energy aggregators” because we believed that “electricity aggregators,” which play roles between electricity companies and their consumers to adjust the balance of supply and demand of electric power, could be targets in light of the content of the technology.

As a consequence, one of the “electricity aggregators” that we contacted showed interest in the technology, resulting in Company C successfully concluding a contract with the aggregator.

As we have been conducting market research for many years, we are able to make such proposals above based on our accumulated industry knowledge, know-how, etc. of various industries.

 

We believe that this is the reason why Yano Research Institute has been able to achieve a relatively high rate of successful contracts in business matchmaking support for startup companies and small and medium-sized enterprises.