…we are experienced interim managers that work in the trenches with our customers. Our independent high ethical standards, continuous search for innovative thinking combined with a inside-out implementation process is at the base of our success ! …
....we push your business beyond its current boundaries.
We tailor services with the main goal being the management of change and distinguish between several type of business services. Our experience is in both old and new economy segments. To receive a short presentation on Makwa please write us a few words: info@makwa.com
Here follows a few takeaways from our success stories:
NPI has serious impacts on the business activities: everywhere and all the time. For startups this can go well beyond round C ! These impacts need continuous attention (resources) and great corporate resilience at every step of the product’s road map till it becomes commercially viable.
Maximizing the resources allocations while approaching the commercialization is like riding the treacherous and windy Route de La Tourbie (ref to Grace K).
Many articles have been written on the NPI process, but managers and their investors still never know where to push or where to pull back resources. Many of these articles also get lost in technical diagrams, or in generalities and essentially mention three major NPI phases: (i) the discovery of the idea, (ii) the development, and finally (iii) the launch.
However, in real life (well into round B) when you are all geared up preparing for both: (i) commercialization (supporting the first installations, finding, and training the channels, etc…) and (ii) productization / scaling up (consistency, regulatory, final production files, etc..) you are also continuously pulled back into the development and this is where you start a “zig-zag” that often carries you off the cliff.
It’s not easy to keep the eyes on a winding road ahead while fast responding to any stone fallen from the cliff at any specific turn.
The quickest way I found to map your situation is to honestly position your product roadmap on a Market Readiness Level (MRL) scale from 1 to 9.
I had experience with the “The Goal” a book on the TOC (Goldratt was at the time looking at operations inside /“in”) and we were comparing this approach with “lean manufacturing” in Toshiba (they were looking outside / “in”). So that TOC looked @ throughput, inventory and operating expense while “lean manufacturing” was looking @ all the chain activities from the customer back up: cost, lead time, value-added perspective.
To catch up on the field of manufacturing and integrated logistics that I have left some time ago when at McK and then consulting for the kibbutz plastic industry I tried to update myself on the emerging i4.0 and the first thing I did was to ask a friend and partner with an IoT professional experience as Yuval Viner (former CEO @ Bos Dimex) to update me on what is happening in the market.
He suggested to look at the IoT industry from the production facilities perspective and classified 3 different factory archetypes that evidences 3 main types: (i) machinery manufacturing / small-lot manufacturing, (ii) automotive / mass – customized production, and (iii) consumer electronics / high-volume production (see also a read from McK).
Today we can look at TOC, lean manufacturing and I4.0 as working in a more holistic way and for a taxonomy of the main innovative technologies driving i4.0 we suggest reading BCG.
For some evidence of i4.0 value drivers look at the below image that can help us understand where a specific innovative technology will impact in terms of efficiency and efficacy.
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For some links in Israel you should refer to Israel’s i4.0 base classification. Notice there is a map of the israeli companies and a list you can even add your company onto – see list.
Numbers on crowdfunding are linked to alternative finance and are huge ($25 Bil and growing fast) however when focusing on equity investment via crowdfunding in startups USA would still be around $2 Billion. This is because landing (P2P), real estate, donations are still the largest part of the cake.
The corporate financing market (equity of loans) is therefore in its infancy. It has a defined high growth direction but has yet to fulfill all its real potential. In front we have a time horizon of ten years in which new and unimaginable opportunities will open up thanks to technology and regulatory interventions. In this context, portals that are already present in the market will have a one-time chance to consolidate while catching opportunities and rocket speed growth for those who will be able to best combine telematic tools and users experience both at the national and multinational level! Moreover the EU market will be opening up to a unique sollicitation marketplace in 2021/2022. This is an opportunity.
A crowd investing platform is no longer a high-risk investment class but an execution project that requires working with the correct financial and human critical masses. In these first 6 years, in Italy alone equity crowdfunding has been used by around 460 companies and around 10-11 thousand investors (including many “family & friends”). The data is growing but still far from having expressed all its potential. Italian commercial banks are getting involved and investing in the platforms.
Changes will be incremental as the 1st wave of crowdfunding was born to help product pre-sell and were very consumer-based, easier to understand; now these platforms are evolving in a surge of equity based crowdfunding platforms composed of two different “crowds”: the accredited & the ones that have to be accredited by the platform. In some countries like Israel this is becoming an alternative way to finance seed and some round A for hi-tech in others also bricks and mortar business get financed. The average fundraise is still small but regulation is opening up. USA up to $50 Mil in EU up to €8 Mil. The attached crowdfunding investor matrix helps understand where the business is and where it is happening:
on the horizontal axis the type of investment (equity vs lending) and
on the vertical the type of company (startups & innovative) vs SME and public projects.
All reports predict a great potential for this market; to find the right entry point crowdfunders will need to ask: “how can we enhance financing transactions while avoiding the traditional IB channels?”
To answer, crowdfunders will have to learn how to surf a “maverick” … and we do have some technology and some marketing ideas to help. 🙂
Poland is now symbol of innovation and PFR Ventures – operates fund of funds, offering financing for innovative SMEs.
They are looking for GP teams that will be able to rightly manage technology investments and raise funds to match their stake into the venture. Following successful DD process the teams are approved and must bring to the table the complementary money from private LPs.
Poland is growing faster then other EU countries and there is good base to build a winning life science cluster. ±€5 bil in pharma/y, ±€1bil in medical devices/y, 8000 local life science companies, about 1000 Hospitals and 20k clinics or 6H beds /000 (2x than the USA and 1.5x then CH) is a good start. Bioengineering MSc degrees are issued in english in more than one University and this adds more skills and specialized staff in the market; however all this needs a boost as there is yet not enough concentration of interconnected businesses, free contractors, associated institutions and startup wins to evidence a clear self regeneration. Some of Poland new round of grants (±€5 bil /year in development) could help if intentionally directed to this sector and partially adapted to the special requirements life science early stage projects need to achieve commercialization.
Eliza Kruczkowska, Shimi Azaria, and David G. Vita; moderator: Roi Ben Daniel.
Poland has Billions of € to be granted for innovation; such money must be spent in Poland and you need to open a “nexus” (Polish R&D subsidiary). This is good for Poland, and will increase foreign direct investments (FDI), and for the Israeli companies that can find matching R&D skills there. We are now launching the first “nexus” to develop a small non-invasive ear-VNS treatment of cognitive impairment degeneration / Alzheimer’s Disease @ Home: Cogniguard.
Animal studies are conducted in Lodz.
opened new Poland Ventures offices in: Natolin 15, 92-703 Łódź, Poland
Makwa is in tight business contacts with Polish and Israeli technology managers to raise funds from BSD GROWTH a self managed fund based in Gibraltar. Our role will be as a GP running for PFR Venture & NCBiR tenders in Poland while (if winners) use the BSD GROWTH Fund as a support investment vehicle (LP) to choose, manage and escort the targeted companies from as early as a post proof of concept (POC) stage well through the commercialisation stage and possibly to exit.
Yigal Erlich, Adam Broncel and David Vita @ Bioforum in Lodz 2016
Makwa officially represented in Israel the State of Massachusetts and Massport for many years and with the unique support of the NEICC pushed Israeli companies to invest their future on “Rd128”. “Massachusetts was the trailblazer as the first US state to open a representative office here for trade and investment promotion under the auspices of the Massachusetts Office of Trade & Investment, a cabinet position of then governor William Weld with David Vita acting is the officer’s local director.
David quoted to say: “For every dollar’s worth of intellectual property a foreign company brings to the country (the value of which is determined by authorities), the government provides $3 in grants. And they are really interested in Israeli technologies,” http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-poland-ready-to-do-business-despite-past-expert/
1. What is an interim manager ? “He / she is like a samurai; bound by duty and honour.”
2. Why should you hire a “samurai” for a business “Because you feel (may still not know) you are heading towards a “change situation” that can be negative (a downturn) or positive (new business development, new financing…)”
3. When should you hire the samurai ? “Before the problem arises.”
4. How should you choose samurai ? “Essentially, we are talking about a person that would excel in his assignment and from day one push out of his/her own boundaries: honest, transparent with a hands-on approach. You need to “feel” their potential to work out the details bottom up from the trenches while defining and making the change happen. Also they must be excellent in communication.”
5. How do you measure the success ? “By jointly defining and continuously refining the assignment parameters: financing raising amounts, sales increase, profitability increases, mitigation strategy potentials, new candidates, new suppliers or new potential customers fit to the business, etc… Finally the success should always be > 10x of the “hire” efforts (total expenses of the “hire”).”
When you need to monitor a large corporation you also need to identify the right parameters and then make sure you are gathering the information bottom up. In a nutshell you need:
some guidelines: to set the goals.
a process: to define the key performance measurements and design.
a dashboard: of the key indicators that will point and align the business to its goals.
Not forgetting that all this must be aligned into the guidelines and the corporate strategy of each SBU.
