Essentials of Business Development 29 January-1 February 2019

Contact the course organiser: Julie.coombes@praxisauril.org.uk

Is this course right for me?

This course is for people who are new to business development in HE/research organisations or new to business development altogether.  They may not have much experience of working with business and probably not much experience of how university business engagement works.

Delegates will most likely be working in higher education, public sector research organisations, and potentially in businesses too.  They may have significant experience in aspects of internal management of TT/Knowledge Exchange (KE), but less knowledge and understanding of the specific issues around business development.  They may be focusing on a discipline area or a particular sector e.g. Healthcare, Arts and Culture, Physics, Biosciences.

Why should I attend this course?

Universities are increasingly expecting their academics to diversify income streams, build pathways to impact and support knowledge exchange.  Academics are busy and often don’t have the skills needed to build relationships and engage effectively with business. With Impact as a major new driver, we expect that more staff with a business development or business engagement role will be recruited.

It is easy to make contacts but much harder to turn these into valuable, long-term, productive relationships.  This course aims to make this process more straightforward and efficient and give the delegates tools to help them add value to the academic or scientist with whom they are working.

What will I learn from the course?

• What is business development all about?

• The challenge of presenting an offer to a crowded and fragmented market (internal and external)

• Understanding where your offer fits in the value chain

• The different ways in which universities interact with business and mechanisms that can be used to facilitate that.

• How to engage with different markets

• Hear what industry really thinks of your services and how we can improve them

• Tips on networking and building a wide and varied network of contacts

• How to use tools such as marketing databases, client relationship management (CRM), marketing and social media to achieve your goals

• How to lead conversations with customers to generate interest and enthusiasm and move relationships towards agreements

• How to define the elements of an efficient deal by focussing on the needs of the parties

• How to be a successful account manager

Delegates will have the opportunity to hear from (and speak directly with) academic, industrial and business development practitioners. There will also be ample opportunity for networking with other delegates, the course team and other contributors.  Delegates will have the opportunity to solve their own business development problems with the help of the course delegates.

PLEASE NOTE: There may be a requirement for delegates to undertake some pre-course work/reading before the course begins.

View programme 

Venue

The course will be held at Burleigh Court which is located on the Loughborough University campus (West Entrance). Loughborough railway station is three miles away - taxis are available at the station or there is a regular shuttle bus every 20 minutes from the station to the venue. If you are driving, Burleigh Court is one mile from junction 23 on the M1; ample free secure on-site car parking is available. Nottingham East Midlands Airport is just eight miles away.

Accommodation

Discounted bed and breakfast accommodation is available at Burleigh Court at £92 per night, per person. Please book your accommodation direct with Burleigh Court by calling 01509 633030 and quote the PraxisAuril event reference number 321292 in order to receive the discounted rate. Discounted rates are not available when booking accommodation online.  Any bedrooms that are not booked by 1 January 2019 will be released. Accommodation may still be available at Burleigh Court after this date but might not be at the discounted rate.

Please note that the course begins with registration, including dinner and drinks, on Tuesday 29 January 2019 from 1830-2030.