May 6 – 7. Wireless future was representing Norway at a BSR Innonet meeting targeting the ICT-pilot of BSR (Baltic Sea Region) with focus on the entire value chain of mobile devices. For information re. BSR Innonet and the ICT-pilot se enclosed presentation. Also enclosed are presentations of the organizations participating in the meeting.
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Except Wireless future, all participants in the Pilot are having functions in the innovation systems of local clusters. There was no representative from Denmark. This makes it a challenge to achieve results on a broad BSR level as the process does not have a broad and natural foundation in the structures of the BSR wireless industry or its markets, but is driven by local interests.
For Wireless future (Wf) this limits the value of the Pilot, as in assisting a company in our network in selecting international partners we would propose the most relevant players in each region of interest based on most relevant measures for strengthening the competitiveness of the company. Other suggestions may be suboptimal and not lead to a strengthening at all.
As Wireless future is a large network with many companies, there are at least a few companies with unique values from a global perspective in the clusters of the BSR pilot that is likely to match the needs of one or more companies in Wireless future. To become a strategic opportunity though, timing for matching must be right which is less likely when colaborating with a few local networks compared to large natinonal networks. However, as a result of the meeting an interesting case came up which will be evaluated.
Main conclusions of the meeting were to further investigate four pilot activities:
1. a workshop on ICT-solutions for low energy living (Finland) November 2008, Oulu, Finland
2. a workshop for ITS- roadmap to be presented at the global ITS conference in Stockholm 2009 (Responsible - Norway)
3. co-location og the BSR region at existing fairs (Sweden)
4. a joint paper on female leadership in the ICT-sector (Poland) Month 2009, Europe
The first two activities fit within the objectives and activities of Wireless future, the main value being contributing with other perspectives to Wireless future “Intelligent environments” project and forming of international and more visible business networks from discovering of commonalities and complimentary interest during the process.
I have mixed feelings for activity 3. as expanding to the BSR region in profiling of the companies may degrade the global trade mark of Nordic wireless technology and I am not sure about the upside for Norwegian companies. For companies in Sweden or Finland the countries in the Baltic region is an important market for expansion in itself, but also for expansion into Russia and other eastern european markets. Maybe the BSR-project could be an opportunity for Norwegian companies to learn more about these markets.
It was also discussed to try to coordinate activities like Exhibitions and Congresses in the BSR countries, and maybe even merge some of them in order to get at stronger global impact.
Generally visibility is important for companies in the markets of the customers they are addressing. For the participants in the Wireless future network the most important regions for visibility and presence are the Nordic countries, then the European countries and then the rest of the world.
In view of that:
· Nokia, Ericsson, SonyEricsson, and Telenor are among the leading global players having their roots in the Nordic countries, and that
· most major terminal development companies have development departments in the Nordic area, and that
· within wireless components, products and services many of the Nordic players are among the global leaders, and that
· Nordic universities have leading positions within some of the fields of knowledge forming the future wireless society
it should be possible to get Nordic, European and global visibility for Nordic events. That would lower the barriers for our network participants to go international considerably and attract more attention to our industry.
From a Norwegian perspective the most valuable result of the meeting was to establish a consortium to plan an Artemis project. This consortium may include the small Norwegian company Radiocrafts. From discussions with Radiocrafts it has become clear that Radiocrafts is interested provided that business opportunities and funding is available.
Next step is to clarify the interest if the Finish partner. We believe that maybe Statoil or Telenor could participate in the project as demanding customers, but have a lot sort out before considering this option in depth. We are also considering if there are opportunities for Sintef, ABB, Baze and Devotean in this project. Sintef may have to compete with groups at the university of Oulu.
A project draft can be found here:
It seems as Finish companies can do with a very much lower equity ratio then Norwegian companies, as the Finish government contributes with financing in addition to EU. This may reduce the Norwegian contribution.
