Speeds up IT security acquisition
On finding a key innovation from a small company how easily can it pass through your corporate procurement processes?
UKII looks to accelerate the take-up of innovation in IT security from SMEs in several ways.
Firstly, by educating innovators to present their innovations in business terms and context we are speeding up the initial contact process. Then by putting those business-oriented innovations to our Advisory Panel we are able to keep momentum and help streamline the early stages of the procurement process.
Secondly, and most importantly, we also aim to use our influence with the corporate and political world to help reduce the barriers to innovation take-up, which will speed up the acquisition process.
Corporate risk avoidance policies and processes present a major obstacle for innovators from small and medium sized organisations wanting to break into large enterprises.
In particular, corporate procurement and due diligence processes, designed for routine run-of-the-mill contracts, are all too often ill-equipped to accommodate innovation. Innovators face the “Catch-22” of only being able to prove that they are financially viable if they get the contract they are pitching for. They also often become enmeshed in big company routines, and have to bear the crippling cost of long evaluation processes, the vagaries of company politics and lengthy decision cycles.
Due diligence takes many forms, not only technical but financial, legal and regulatory, among others.
Large suppliers understand these processes and have the resource to factor them in. Small companies, however, do not.
