Welcome to the course

Welcome to ‘Developing New Business Ideas for Commercial Success’, developed by Dr Marrisa Joseph, Associate Professor of Organisation Studies and Business History at Henley Business School, University of Reading. A historian of the British publishing industry, Dr Marrisa’s teaching focuses on management in the creative industries and she has designed professional development courses to commercialise ideas based on intellectual property. Her research interests centre on business history and the management of creative industry organisations. Before she entered academia, Dr Marrisa used to work in rights management in the publishing industry. 

The word ‘commercial’, to me, means that the idea has the potential to make a profit, because it will appeal to a wide range of people, and this means it would sell. Different people will have different perspectives on what ‘commercial success’ means. What’s important is that you develop your ideas in a way that delivers on your personal definition.

Who is the course for?

This course is for anyone with a new business idea looking for guidance on how best to develop it into a commercial opportunity. You might be a business professional working within an organisation, keen to develop new opportunities in your current markets. Or, perhaps you work for yourself and have an idea for how you might expand your offering to your customers. Maybe you’re keen to set up a new business from scratch based on an idea you’ve had for a novel product or service. Whichever scenario fits your circumstances, this course will help you take the next steps towards commercial success. It introduces the fundamental concept of Intellectual Property and explains how it allows individuals and organisations to protect the value in their ideas, and then exploit that value in the most effective way possible.

Successful commercialisation of an idea requires an educated approach to exploiting the Intellectual Property (IP) it represents. This course will consider UK IP law. IP law is applied differently in different countries and territories so it’s important to note that before commercialising your idea, you seek independent legal advice. This course does not seek to replicate formal independent legal advice. Instead, it aims to give you a foundational understanding of IP, so you know the right questions to ask.

Learning Journal

From a practical perspective we know that just having an idea isn’t enough; there needs to be sufficient strategy to turn ideas into commercial reality. This course explains the process for developing new products and services by commercialising ideas. And to make it really relevant to you, we want you to work through the process using one or two or your own ideas. Download this Learning Journal and jot down your answers to our questions whenever you are prompted to do so as you progress through the course (don’t fill it in online as it won’t save your answers). By the end of the course, you’ll then have a fully worked-out plan for turning your ideas into business success.

This learning journal will also help with another vital aspect of effective value creation which is that you can trace ownership of your ideas (an aspect that will be covered in more detail in Step 1.6 Ownership vs Control). We therefore encourage you to date your entries as you make them, and to keep the details of your ideas to yourself rather than sharing them with other learners in the Discussion areas. You’ll discover why this is important as you progress through the course.

Before moving on to the next Step, think again about the term ‘commercial success’. Have another look at the word cloud in the previous Step and make a note in your learning journal of what commercial success would look like for you.  

Starting with an understanding of what commercial success means to you will help in deciding which ideas you want to develop, and the strategies that will turn them into a success as you define it.  

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