Developing a Feasible Commercialization Strategy for "Erdusyk”. Where entrepreneurial education meets academic entrepreneurship

Abstract

A research group named “Snow” at Norwegian Center for Integrated Care and Telemedicine (NST) has developed a prototype of a Disease Query Engine that is capable of performing epidemiological searches. That feature coupled with interface for electronic consultation makes an interesting product “Erdusyk” that has good customer, societal and business utility. The research group has a larger focus on academia and quite lesser motive for commercialization. In an attempt to assist the researchers in the commercialization process as well as to enhance entrepreneurial education through providing students with knowledge from both the academia and the industry, the idea was presented to a master’s degree student of Business Creation Entrepreneurship at UiT to find out a viable commercialization strategy. The viable commercialization strategy is presented in this master’s thesis.

The research is guided by a main research question which is then divided into three sub-questions for specificity. The main research question that is “development of feasible commercialization strategy for Erdusyk” goes through the process of innovation study, marketing study and business plan each guided by their own sub-question. The innovation study provides insights of the technicalities of the product and utilities it offers to the customers, society and the business world. It also identifies the type of innovation involved in the product. The degree of innovation involved in the product has implications on the market strategy. The market strategy is formed on the basis of the innovation study and information from a questionnaire survey, some semi-structured interviews and some secondary data. A market entry strategy is formed as a result. Similarly, closely linked to the innovation study and market study, a business plan is formulated. The business plan will provide the real world image of several players in the value chain and their interests. It will propose a business model that is suitable for the idea and the financial scenario that might follow with that model. Calculating a tentative value of the firm, it will propose a suitable investment offer for investors.