Our objective was to conduct research and win government funding for accelerated commercialisation of an innovative startup’s ground-breaking technology for advanced materials handling systems. This involved completing a significant funding proposal for IMCRC funding in conjunction with an Australian university, facilitating workshops with university academics, aligning business, university, and government stakeholders, and engaging with key funding approvers.
We faced several challenges in the project, including managing diverse stakeholder needs between the company, academic advisers, and funding body, incorporating 20 diverse, high-level individual views into a single proposal, limited available resources, and a tight window of opportunity. Additionally, estimating the research and development of undefined product manufacturing processes proved difficult.
We successfully tackled the challenges of diverse stakeholder needs, limited resources, a tight timeline, and undefined product manufacturing processes to achieve the following: approval of a $4.4 million project, including a government grant for the manufacture of a new product line; simplification of highly technical concepts into a clear roadmap. Also, we transferred ownership of the funding proposal to the client for execution, compressed a three-year product development program into one year, and established an access pathway to academic staff and test facilities.
