Public procurement notice: Contract Notice
Published: 2016-10-21
Buyer: Teesside University
Country: UK
Region: Tees Valley and Durham
Contract type: Supplies
Procedure: Open procedure
CPV classification: 79000000 | 79400000 | 79410000 | 79900000
Submission deadline: 2016-11-28
Award criteria: The most economic tender
EU fund: ERDF

Technical requirements: Teesside University's Department of Academic Enterprise are seeking to appoint a team of consultants to enhance and support the Innovate Tees Valley ERDF Programme through the delivery of innovation support services to Tees Valley based SME companies. The maximum number of consultants awarded to each sub lot on the framework will be 5. Tender documents can be obtained from https://in-tendhost.co.uk/neupc/aspx/Home.
Provide strategic innovation support to businesses to enable them to define, build and commercialise their innovation ideas and plans.
Bidders will be expected to provide a robust and challenging environment for the company to focus their attention on the challenges surrounding innovation and investment requirements to help innovate and commercialise their products, processes or services. We seek an experienced individual(s) who can provide assistance under the following sub lots:
Strategic Investment for Innovation — provide strategic guidance and direction on a range of options through a systematic and detailed assessment of the company's requirements for investment and growth. Investor Readiness and Scale Up are key areas of focus to allow the company to develop and exploit the innovation. Consultants will be assigned to deliver innovation consultancy support, some lasting over a 3 / 6-month period, to ensure the company is well positioned to secure significant investment during their innovation journey.
Develop a robust and scalable business model with clearly identified revenue streams that generate repeatable cash flow or continuity income
Identify management team gaps that will need to be addressed to bring further credibility to the team prior to an investor pitch
IP Audits — undertake detailed IP Audits highlighting issues affecting the development of products or services and any associated impact to the company. Advise on licensing considerations, including royalty levels, payment structuring and IP valuation
Taking Innovation to Market (Strategic Marketing) — develop strategic marketing planning and market intelligence. Brand, product launch and promotion strategies. Social media, measuring impact. Identify the most appropriate application markets and sales channels for IP.
Detailed Innovation Diagnostics & Technology Assessments — undertake detailed diagnostics that can be appropriated and applied to micro, medium and large SME's to assess their innovation and technology capacity and capability. Detailed reporting highlighting gaps and weaknesses with road-maps for referral to appropriate project partners and/or approved ITV consultants.
The Tees Valley combined authority has identified the regions high productive sectors — Advanced Manufacturing and Low Carbon Energy. In addition, Professional Services and Health have been recognised as sectors with high growth employment outcomes. The area's digital and creative sector has seen significant growth, with the annual percentage rise in the number of digital firms in 2014 higher than any other LEP area.
Teesside University support the regions digital cluster through its digital support program, Digital City. Through ‘Digital Innovation’ Digital City aims to accelerate the growth of the regions high productive and job rich sectors. We are seeking consultants who are able support high impact digital innovation in our regions businesses.
Digital Innovation Audit — provide a full digital innovation audit and match them with local suppliers to innovate and integrate digital & creative products that will improve business growth. This should include:
Additionally Digital City are to deliver innovation workshops helping to bring innovative digital concepts into reality and produce minimal viable products (proof of concept).
We quickly identify what is technically feasible, establish a plan and roadmap to get a digital product to market.
We are looking for consultants with current and significant commercial experience in the following specialisms to support the above objective: