Dates & Location:
 October 22-23, 2007 / Cambridge, MA

COURSE OUTLINE

Why China?
The opportunity and the threat

Roger Nagel Harvey Wagner Professor and Sr. Fellow, CSE and Enterprise Systems Center Lehigh University author, Cooperate to Compete

In this context-setting overview, Roger Nagel will discuss Asia as a source of innovation and R&D collaboration – how to go beyond outsourced commodity products to produce synergies that exceed the benefits of reduced operations cost. He will outline the advantages and disadvantages of Asia (talent, cost, quality, speed, etc) and provide both positive and negative industry case examples. In addition he will talk about gaining access to the Chinese market and whether certain industries are more likely to succeed than others.

Since most collaborations will succeed or fail over cultural and harmony issues, this talk will also provide advice, expertise and case experience to guide you in choosing and structuring partnerships as well as successfully managing them once in place. Most people think R&D is very long term and they can't afford to have an R&D center. But there is now hard evidence that the R&D investments are being made by small firms as well as large and that they yield product and process innovations that generate profit fairly quickly. Applied engineering development is now richly available in China; tapping into it as well as tapping into the China marketplace are today’s driving forces – this session will help you determine the best approach for your firm.

Managing Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer in a
Co-Innovation Environment -
A China Perspective

Asia, especially China and its growing economy, represents a great market opportunity that nonetheless is full of challenges. With its intellectual property laws barely 20 years in the making, intellectual property management and technology transfer in China remain risky. The level of risk, however, is very industry sector dependent and is manageable in some industries but barely so in others. Such variations command different business strategies and arrangements that need to mesh with the culture and tradition of the industry sectors. In this session, Dr. Paau will outline these strategies and arrangements.

Dr. Alan Paau is Vice Provost for Technology Transfer and Economic Development at Cornell University and President of the Cornell Research Foundation. Until January 2007, he was Assistant Vice Chancellor for Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Services at the University of California San Diego. Dr. Paau held various research and management positions in the Cetus Corporation and the W.R. Grace & Co. organization for 12 years. He is the inventor to 8 US patents and has contributed thirty peer-reviewed research articles to scientific journals and six invited reviews/chapters to technical books. As a director of intellectual property and a licensing executive, he supervised the execution of over 850 licenses and option agreements and the formation of over 90 startup companies using university innovations.

Negotiating and Initiating a Partnership for Co-Innovation
* Presentation and Interactive Exercise

Partnering with Chinese companies and organizations requires the ability to work effectively across cultures throughout the critical phases of negotiating, establishing agreement, initiating the partnership, and beyond. Before you can even start discussing revenue models and IP protection, you need to build trusting relationships with your Chinese partners. Along the way, differing cultural views of acceptable and unacceptable practices present huge challenges and require profound cultural understanding and adaptability. Chinese counterparts may appear pushy and unyielding; all the while, they might be viewing you as impatient and mistrusting. Successful co-innovation with partners in China requires knowing how to manage the engagement process and overcome such perceptions.

Led by author and project management expert Lothar Katz, who frequently works with Chinese partners, this session will equip you with the cross-cultural understanding, practical frameworks and methods to:

• Nurture trusting relationships with Chinese partners right from the start

• Prepare for unfamiliar negotiation tactics and deal with them successfully

• Identify and manage expectations; establish agreements in ways that make them dependable

• Stimulate open and trusting communication

• Encourage risk-taking and increase team motivation

• Establish ground rules that serve as a foundation for co-innovation

• Draw boundaries without closing doors

The session includes both presentation and hands-on group activity to reinforce and apply new approaches.