mICF

Agile commercialisation

a1 Amputee SkiWe see the modern provision of health and care within the concept of a service system as “a configuration of people, technologies, organisations and shared information, able to create and deliver value to providers, users and other interested entities, through service”.

Once finalised the mICF will facilitate the exchange of relevant information for health and wellness between users and the system, both benefitting from this exchange; the user in acquiring predictive recommendations that assist in improving health and well-being; and the system in obtaining additional valuable data that, once anonymised, can be used for future analytics and benefit the population as a whole.

To enable both project success and execution efficacy, modern yet established lean start-up and agile commercialisation techniques will be used by the software company members in the consortium (See Table). The mICF partners have extensive experience with these methodologies. Specifically, a first market segment and economic buyers will be engaged early in the process to provide disciplined, in-market experimentation in the form of successive Minimum Viable Product versions to ensure a convergence between the assumptions of the consortium team and actual requirements that will address pain points in the market. This tight feedback loop will help ensure that when a product status is reached that it is a fit for the market or at least for a first scalable market segment.

The value-creation process enabled by our product will therefore combine the relevant parts of a smart service system, “People, Process and Technology”. The current status of mICF in the commercialisation lifecycle can be considered as being in the later stages of innovation. To transition to the incubation phase a target market segment – our “patient journeys” on different test sites – have been identified for disciplined, in-market experimentation to iteratively align assumptions with market feedback. Once a scalable, differentiated offering, with paying customers, has been proven in which an assumed value proposition has been confirmed by a sufficiently attractive market segment, the business can be prepared for scaling by using appropriate “acceleration” techniques. Realistically a successful grant will enable the team to take a few offerings with high impact towards the end of the incubation phase.

Table 1. Overview of lean start-up and agile commercialisation techniques

Technique/ToolDescriptionOutcome
Agile CommercialisationDisciplined in-market experimentationMatured offering confirmed by several paying reference customers ready for scaling
Value Constellation MappingMapping out ecosystem, personas and value exchangeClear understanding of players in market, interactions, user-buyer, technical buyer and economic buyer and value exchange with us through sales cycle
Portfolio AnalysisMarket segments as a function of Market Attractiveness and Competitive PositionMarket segment to focus on
Scenario AnalysisIdentification of top variables and risksInforming selection of focus market segment
4Ps of MarketingStrategy for Product, Pricing, Promotion and Distribution (Place)Holistic market strategy informed by agile, experimental process
Executive pitchListener-train-of-thought to cast value proposition in the most optimal way for a potential customer

 

Articulating value proposition from client’s perspective rather than ours
Miller-Heiman Blue Sheet AnalysisBest Practices Executive Sales TechniqueEssential commercial preparation for executive-level entry into an account albeit for first reference customers
Innovation organisationStructuring a start-up business within an existing organisation to avoid it being destroyed by “Performance Engine”This will likely be a start-up business within an existing organisation which is extraordinarily difficult without the right organisational structure
Provocation Based SellingHarvard executive sales technique to move budget outside of the normal budget cycleShorter sales cycle at C-suite level
Scaling Techniques“Sales Play”, Doblin and other techniquesAcceleration when leaving incubation phase
Salesforce.comMost popular and practical Customer Relationship Management (CRM) packageProfessional pipeline management of early reference customers
 Intellectual Property ManagementEnhancing competitive position with reference to Portfolio Diagram

cropped-cropped-DisabilityServices-resized.jpgThe viral uptake of the mICF solution, driven primarily through social media marketing techniques, will not only ensure the required big data for personalised predictive care, but also the critical mass allowing patients’ voices to be heard in ways never imagined before. This could be the catalyst needed to rapidly reform health services and health professions education (5) as the ecosystem of this new business model arises.

The dissemination of mICF will not only entail economic buyers (for-profit big data analytics) and viral uptake (non-profit personalised clinical and social care decision-making), but will also result in numerous academic publications decurrent from a whole research program developed around the diverse patient groups and locations where the app will be used. The mICF has the potential to trigger the development of a new personalised, predictive health care science and industry globally.