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An incubator manager and governing body need to have a determination to see the incubator succeed, as well as an ability to balance day-to-day management activities with the bigger picture goals. Balancing the short view with the long view can be a challenge, and this section provides tools for incubators to achieve this balance.
This Guideline highlights the importance of Strategic Management to incubators.
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
Strategic management integrates strategic planning with other management systems in a process to promote overall business effectiveness. This article steps through how to design and implement a strategic management approach that is specifically suited to incubators.
Objectives
Strategic Management is a globally-understood process that promotes business effectiveness. It integrates strategic planning (and its focus on efficiency) with other management systems, while at the same time engaging all line managers in strategic development and implementation. Strategic Management is an ongoing decision-making process that shapes the performance of the organization, taking into account the internal and external strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
According to the European Commission in their Final Report Benchmarking of Business Incubators (2002) “The quality of the management team, and adoption of a business-like approach to running incubators and monitoring clients, is crucial to performance and best practices in this field are becoming standardized”.
The NBIA Training Institute lists 10 principles that incubators should have in terms of quality management:
1. Concentrate on the development or collection of support services;
2. Value the growth and development of individual companies beyond their ability to pay rent;
3. Be judged on your ability to create new business or help nurture emerging companies, not on the number of jobs directly created.
4. Be structured so that the property element takes a secondary position relative to programs since serving businesses is the core of quality incubation programs.
5. Be viewed as one possible component of an integrated economic development plan and be designed to reflect the strengths and weaknesses of the region;
6. Be structured so that program outcomes match both the short and long-term benefits required by sponsors;
7. Work from a clear mission statement with quantifiable goals and objectives tied to an evaluation process which rewards quality performance;
8. Be run by highly skilled, street-smart managers who are willing to wear a large number of hats;
9. Recognize the inevitable tension faced by the manager who functions as both advocate for the companies and landlord of a facility;
10. Set up and run operational policies and systems in a business-like fashion.
Source: Forging the incubator – How to Design and Implement a Feasibility Study for a Business Incubation Program, 1993.
Key Issues
The main strategic management tool is the planning of the incubator, which includes the Business Plan. The incubator should be managed as a business, just like the enterprises that it supports. Consequently, just like any successful business, the incubator should have its own planning (the planning and structuring stages of the Business Plan are described in Area 2: Modeling and Planning the ICT Enabled Business Incubator). Strategic management means knowledge of the business as a whole. For incubators, this strategic management process can be divided into the following main topics, each of which has an appropriate Guidelines:
1. Planning, Monitoring and Assessment
2. Marketing, Management and Public Relations
3. Financial Management
4. Raising Funds
5. Operations/Management
- Contracting Outsourced Services
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Procurement
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Basic Support Offered to Incubated Enterprises
6. Human Resources Management
- Process for Hiring Employees
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Personal Growth and Development Process
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Motivational Instruments
Responsible Parties
Incubator managers
Indicators
- Definition of the management system of the incubator
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Definition of the performance assessment model
Results
Strategic Vision of the incubator and management focused on results, performance and efficacy.
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