IT Business Incubators

8/4/2019 IT Business Incubators

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Promoting Innovation and Entrepreneurship

In

The Caribbean

by

Leveraging Information Technology

in

Business Incubators

by

Chris Roberts, ADGPro



Preamble: It is evident that a spirit of entrepreneurship needs to be encouraged to foster economicgrowth in the Caribbean region. With the decline of the banana industry, economic

diversification has taken center stage. The majority of diversification efforts have focused

on tourism and tourism related activities such as music festivals. These efforts can beugmented with programs to facilitate entrepreneurship and diversification in othera

sectors.

The concept of Business Incubation is an area of interest for many Governments around the

world in their drive to foster entrepreneurial growth and development in the private

sector. In the Caribbean, the concept itself is in the incubation stage and has only received

specific attention from funding agencies and Governments in recent years. In the past threeyears a number of Caribbean islands have developed Business Gat eways, supported by

unding and technical assistance from The European Union, (EU)f 1and the World Bank through InfoDev 2and its affiliates.

It is generally agreed that Information Technology will play a key role in the viability of

usinesses and business Incubators. A good plan will utilize a structured approach towardbIT implementation following methodologies such as the ITIL Framework.

The vast array of technologies and services available at unbelievable low cost behoovespon the management of a business incubator tou efficiently maximize the use of technology

o provide services to client firms.t

Innovation It is generally accepted by Consultants and Business Incubator managers that there is no

one model for success. Innovation is the driving force behind ALL successful Businessncubator models and a key success factor in most of the innovative ideas for the structureI

of the incubators is the fact that the solutions were home grown and contextual.

Any Business Incubator planning to be sustainable should leverage Information and

Communication Technology to reduce costs and improve efficiency.

n this edition we will look at 2 technologies that provide solutions that are changing the

ay business is done.

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w

1 The European Union, through its Special Framework of Assistance (SFA) has given a mandate and has provided

funding for the development of sustainable Business Incubators as an effective mechanism for supporting economic

diversification through local innovation and entrepreneurship.

2 InfoDev is an innovative global partnership of international development agencies focused on how Information

and Communication Technologies (ICT) can help combat poverty and promote opportunity, empowerment and

economic growth in developing countries. This partnership is coordinated and served by a secretariat housed in the

World Bank, one of InfoDev’s principal donors and founders.



VirtualizationWhile it is true that the cost of computer hardware has been significantly reduced,implementing a properly equipped IT infrastructure can be costly. Added to that is the

hallenge of providing quality of service to Incubator tenants and the concept of c

establishing a virtual infrastructure becomes more and more attractive.

irtualization can provide an incubator with a robust solution for its IT infrastructureVwhile reducing the need for in house IT Administration and IT assets.

A virtual machine is a separate and independent software instance of an operating systemand application software. Multiple virtual machines can be hosted on a single physical

machine; the actual number of virtual machines possible is limited only by available

emory. The physical machine would be configured with a server virtualizationmhypervisor such as VMware, Citrix XenServer, VSphere, or Microsoft HyperV.

Virtual Servers are generally housed in a secure facility and accessed via the internet using

connection protocols such as Remote Desktop, Telnet or VPN Tunnels. This solution isreferred to as co‐location. These servers are managed by the service provider who typically

provides additional services such as disaster recovery, backups, failover, security and patchmanagement. In an environment like the Caribbean prone to natural disasters, such

onsiderations are important, however, virtual servers can be hosted in‐house just asc

effectively using a low‐cost hypervisor such as VMware.

Virtual machines can also be configured as workstations. This reduces the need for high

CPU capacity at the user’s physical workstation. Virtual desktops offer many advantages

over physical machines. Because these virtual machines run entirely in memory, they boot faster. A user can start a task at his virtual machine, shut down his physical machine,

leaving the task running on the virtual machine and log back in later to check on progress.f the virtual desktops are hosted on the same network as the server, significant I

improvements in throughput can be realized.

An incubator with a virtual IT infrastructure will be in a position to scale up or down as theT needs of the tenant firms change. Excess server capacity can also be leased to other non‐

.

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tenant clients thereby allowing the Incubator to realize ongoing return on investment

The cost of virtualization will be dictated by the needs of the incubator. As with all IT

projects, proper planning will ensure successful implementation. A properly IT enabled

incubator will be in a good position to provide cost effective solutions to its tenant clientsand will move one step closer to the goal of autonomous sustainability.



Software as a Servicelosely related to virtualization is the concept of Software as a Service (SaaS) sometimesC

called Cloud Computing.

This solution has the entire IT world buzzing with excitement with companies such as

Microsoft, IBM and Google investing billions in this new form of computing. SaaSapplications are a means for incubators to provide cost effective solutions to tenants.Essentially, the applications run on powerful computers hosted in the ‘cloud’ and users pay

a license fee to utilize the application. The application is generally accessed via a browser

interface and in some cases via a Smart Phone application. Updates and maintenance of thepplication now becomes the responsibility of the service provider resulting in aa

significantly reduced cost of ownership.

Just about everything is available as SaaS. Applications such as MS Exchange, Sharepoint,

CRM, ERP, Office Productivity Suites, and Supply Chain Management, which can be

expensive to implement and maintain are but a few applications available as SaaS that a

business incubator may want to provide to its tenants. Other SaaS applications includeeb Conferencing solutions such as Webex and GoToMeeting, E‐mail marketing solutionsW

such as Constant Contact and Intranet solutions such as WebOffice.

atabase solutions for Market Access, Knowledge Management etc. are also available asD

SAAS applications.

hese solutions can be powerful tools in the IT arsenal of a Business Incubator and theT

ability to offer these services improves the viability of the Incubator.

With Virtualization and SaaS applications in its tool belt, the Incubator needs properly

leverage these tools. I remember some years back trying to interest a group of companiesto buy in to the idea of a SaaS solution for their accounting software. The issue of trust was

first and foremost on the minds of business owners spawning questions like “How do we

know the data is secure?” and “Who can see my financial data?”. The initiative failed not

due to any inadequacy of the technology but due to the lack of confidence in themanagement of the technology. While this can be seen as a cultural nuance, I have

encountered similar sentiments in North America. The Business Incubator seeking to offerAAS applications to its clients will need to do so mindful of the need to properly allay anyS

fears that may exist.

As with Virtualization, SaaS implementations need proper planning for successfulmplementation. These two technologies pave the way for even further cost reductions byi

an increased ability to share resources.

ubsequent articles will drill down further to implementation strategies for these

echnologies and will address other impactful tools such as Social Media.

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IT Business Incubators

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