Ongoing Services

Whether you’re just starting out or an existing alliance we offer a variety of services that can be customized to meet your needs.

Our services are designed to fuel growth and manage day-to-day operations. They can be procured fully outsourced, where we take on associated payroll, benefits, and facilities burden, or in a range of in source and out source option to reflect the availability of dedicated volunteers or full time staff.

In either case services can be deployed as and when they are needed. You can benefit from shared resources or have fully dedicated personnel.. And you can procure all our services together or in a la carte mode to specific needs.

Services include

• Dedicated or shared executive management
• Technology programs, including plugfests, compliance, and formal, certification
• Strategic marketing and communcations programs, including domestic and international media and analyst relations
• Event Management, including membership meetings and regional outreach
• Committee management, activity management, and program management
• Virtual Business Operations, including membership services, financial management, vendor and supply chain management, and website oversight/services).

   

  Executive Management

  Ecosystems are typically driven by volunteers who must balance their participation in the initiative with the priorities and obligations of their day jobs. Whether they are engaged at the ecosystem Board level, or elsewhere, their need is to optimize their engagement and time by acting on proven success methodologies versus developing from scratch, and overseeing progress.

  We help by providing seasoned resources who have ‘been there and done that’ and who know what works and what doesn’t. When part of an engagement, our dedicated or shared executive directors work with ecosystem leaders and lead the Inventures team. They provide:

  • Strategic Guidance through the Introduction, Growth, Maturity, and Reset stages of the organization lifecycle
  • Business Planning
  • Solutions and Programs development
  • Best Practices Counsel
  • Oversight and management of our team and third parties.

   

  This lets ecosystem volunteers focus on the goal, and rely on the Inventures executive resource to define plans and make things happen.

  Sometimes our clients prefer to engage specific industry experts for certain roles, but don’t want the headache of hiring people, providing benefits, paying for office facilities, etc. In these situations we help recruit and hire the full-time, dedicated executive you require. The executive remains dedicated to your ecosystem, but can make full use of our facilities, technical infrastructure, and competitive employee benefits.

  Technology Programs

  As an ecosystem evolves and produces technical deliverables, complex technology issues around interoperability, compliance testing, and certification can become key requirements for mass market adoption.

  We have experts on hand to help our clients develop and run these programs. They help you to:

  • Define the program
  • Procure technical writing and other resources
  • Generate test plans
  • Manage the selection of test houses
  • Maintain the integrity of the certification program

   

  We work closely with the lead technology resource in the ecosystem to deliver the programs needed.

  Strategic Communications and Marketing

  Driving adoption of a solution through an industry or value chain requires an engagement strategy that includes building awareness of the ecosystem and its successes. The ‘build it and they will come’ approach typically doesn’t work.

  We know that budgets available for ecosystem awareness activities are usually a fraction of the levels normally allocated to product and brand proliferation. We provide experts and solutions tuned specifically to these push-pull dynamics.

  Our experts work with ecosystem leaders to develop realistic goals, objectives, and priorities, and then define the marketing mix with the most effective and realistic use of funding. The marketing mix addresses both traditional and electronic components and incorporates:

  • Public Relations
  • Analyst Relations
  • Branding / Identity Design
  • Marketing Communications
  • Education and Outreach programs

   

  Our team deals with top media and industry analysts from around the world.  And our capabilities don’t stop at the resources we have available internally. Where necessary we are able to tap into a trusted network of partners to address specialized needs and services.

  Event and Meeting Planning

  Thriving ecosystems are built through the efforts of people who collaborate mostly remotely and across continents, but also through face to face contact. Our event planners are experts at creating events that enable both remote and in person collaboration. They plan and manage:

  • Conferences, Expos, and Tradeshow presence
  • Member Meetings
  • Plugfests and Interoperability Test Sessions and Demonstrations
  • Developer and User Conferences
  • Open Houses and Outreach Seminars

   

  Our team has organized hundreds of such events around the world, from Africa to Asia, and Europe to the Americas. For each event, we provide experienced professionals, who work with our clients to plan the event, develop budgets, implement sponsorship programs, negotiate contracts with vendors and host or manage each event.

  Virtual Business Operations (VBO)

  As member supported and virtual organizations, ecosystems typically require trusted and reliable services to ensure that day to day operations are handled properly. Our virtual business operation provides ecosystems with an operational anchor, including a principal place of business, finance & bookkeeping, and inbound/outbound administration and membership management services.

  Our teams know how to manage budgets, expenditures, and member contributions; coordinate incoming and outgoing information; and provide responsive service.

  IT Services

  We understand the special requirements of virtual and dispersed collaboration and provide a range of IT services to ensure efficient operations of our client’s day-to-day information, web and email systems, and powerful tools to facilitate “virtual collaboration” through a globally distributed membership base.

  The tools we offer are either our own or from a third party depending on need. In either case our services include managed website hosting with constantly upgraded servers, security and reliability features; websites equipped with content management systems to allow for easy updates and refreshes of the website either by us or volunteers; online payment processing; and, a suite of tools engineered to enable workgroups to utilize critical features like document management, activity tracking, and information access based on access privileges defined by participation level.