Formation/Cours

At the end of the course, the student should be able to:
1) understand and know the framework of a start-up firm, a research spin-off firm and, more generally, of small and medium businesses (SMEs):
a) have learned some basic notions about technological entrepreneurship and start-up/research spin-off definition, main characteristics, problems and needs;
b) being able to implement the new concept of business model canvas, one of the actually most used frameworks for describing the elements of business models;
c) understand the actual institutional and technological environment, the role and the key characteristics of science parks, incubators, venture capitalists, business angels etc.;
d) define what is an industrial partnership, an industrial district/cluster and a (digital) business ecosystem as well as their characteristics; define the difference between formal and informal entrepreneurship networks;
2) develop and implement an economic and strategic analysis thanks to the exercise of:
a) business model analysis of some successful companies;
b) SWOT analysis building;
c) business model canvas building;
d) pedagogical exercises: reading/discussion of press articles and videos seeing/discussion about successful start-up case-studies (history of a business case: steps for product creation…);
3) act in the actual constantly moving economic environment (influenced by the Internet and ICTs):
a) being able to critically discuss and think over the consequences of the Internet and ICT revolution on the actual context of entrepreneurship&SMEs: virtual proximity, use of tools like e-mails and Skype are changing the way to do business and the relationships among the different actors involved;
b) being a member/founder of a start-up or being involved in an industrial project.

1) Start-up and research spin-off firms: definitions, main characteristics, problems and needs. The relationship among start-ups, research spin-offs, universities, science parks and incubators;
2) Some basic concepts about business models, business model canvas, SWOT analysis, will be provided;
3) Industrial partnerships, alliances, (digital) business ecosystems: their role and utility for SMEs following the Internet and ICT revolution;
4) Science parks, incubators, innovation clusters, physical and virtual agglomeration phenomena, various forms of proximity, formal and informal networks: presentation of these concepts and active discussion with the students;
5) The actual context of the Internet and ICT diffusion: their influence on company strategy and development;
6) The most important aspects of SMEs’ development, success and growth: active discussion with the students through articles’ reading and videos’ seeing;
7) Analysis of the history and of the business model of some successful companies;
8) Reading in classroom (followed by interactive discussion with the students) of journal and press articles: cf. The Economist, Forbes, The Times, The Guardian, Journal of Business Strategy…;
9) Pedagogical exercises: projection (followed by active discussion in classroom) of video series “from idea to business” and of videos about “successful entrepreneurial case-studies” (from Agoranov Parisian incubator): the students see every video in order to listen to the history of a business case and the various steps for the product creation; some breaks are suggested during every video in order to ask questions to students (i.e. verify what they have understood, ask what they think about the video content and which are their comments). This process has the aim to foster interactive discussion with students and their critical thinking.