Signing up for the six-month programme delivered by Lancaster University Management School (LUMS) was a logical step, says Jamie Barnett, Sales Director at Jaybox. “Being quite a small company, the problem we had was getting bogged down instead of getting ideas into reality: it’s often difficult to generate the resource to push for innovation. So we were looking to speed up that process and actually follow ideas through.”

The Penrith-based company had previously engaged with Lancaster University’s Science & Technology department on two student projects: one working on the collaborative filtering that enables related customer recommendations, much like Netflix or Amazon; the other reporting on a broad range of technology that could be incorporated into their core product. As they began to look at developing new systems and a new product, a business programme designed to equip Cumbrian SMEs with better tools for innovation had obvious appeal.

“It was different to what I envisaged, but good different,” Jamie says. “The scope was wider. It included a lot about generating ideas, which we were pretty good on anyway. But then it went through how we could challenge those ideas and develop them into fuller, implementable ideas, which we definitely weren’t so good at. We’d been guilty of either shooting things down too soon or waiting until something was absolutely perfect.”

“The programme showed us that your first product release doesn’t have to be perfectly polished, if it’s properly innovative. You can change it as it goes, and you can get the basis of a deal together and then polish it later.” He goes on to describe how a number of new contracts, for supplying music to third parties - a significant new direction for the company – have come about by using this approach.

Jamie highlights the peer learning within his cohort as a particular strength of the programme. “There aren’t many people that do what we do, but I found that a lot of the other businesses, while being totally different, still had a lot of the exact same problems. Learning about their slant on business - as well as learning common techniques for pushing through innovation - was the tip of the iceberg, and it’s really spurred me on to learn more.” He explains that as a direct result of his involvement on this programme, he has started an apprenticeship degree course with the University of Cumbria, LUMS’s partners in the wider Cumbria Innovations Platform.

He is also exploring closer links with other companies, both fellow entrepreneurs from the programme and those increasingly important third parties. The change of mindset came in no small part from the programme’s emphasis on Open Innovation: “Historically, we were all about NDAs and keeping IP firmly to ourselves. Whereas if you share your ideas and collaborate with other companies, often you can develop things that you would never have got to on your own. The programme opened our minds to doing that.”

“Overall, it was very motivating,” he says. “It gave us the tools and techniques to look at what we were doing and to change tack, quite considerably. It helped us see how we needed a new product – or products – and we needed to push for that. It also changed our view on what the market wanted, and the kind of company we’d be, moving forward.”

The Innovation Development Programme is a six-month programme to help senior decision makers develop the skills, knowledge and confidence to think innovatively in their business. It is part of the Cumbria Innovations Platform project, part funded by the European Regional Development Fund. Contact us on innovationdevelopment@lancaster.ac.uk to find out more.