Seminar For Success

Birmingham Science Park at Aston run a series of free breakfast events which, along with rather good bacon butties, provide some real gems in the commendably brief presentations. Today's was epecially worthwhile for a number of reasons. Firstly the Danish pastries were delicious. Secondly Angela Podmore of Kinetic PR even managed to persuade this engineer of the value of PR with an inspired talk. With Chris Hulland of FD Centre banging the drum most effectively for the golden rules of finance, and Hugo Russell of the Science Park showing how to improve your online profile where it matters I came away feeling that more than my waistline had benefitted.

The golden rules of finance deserve to be reprinted everywhere and anywhere!

• Start with the end in mind
• Get to know the scores on the doors
• Make a budget - but be prepared to change it
• Build a financial cornerstone
• Get on top of the cash!

Easy, isn't it? Any questions?

Are High Growth Companies Inherently Different?

Well, Commercial Catalyst certainly think so! I was lucky enough to catch a recent seminar given by Andy Todd which gave a coherent argument for treating high growth companies in a fundamentally different way to the lifestyle businesses and capital exploiters that make up the vast majority of the business scene. A handy scoring mechanism he outlined certainly confirmed my view about one company I'm working with having enormous potential. It threw a number of interesting ideas into the pot, and if you get an opportunity to hear one of their free introductory sessions I'd recommend it.

Fintelis Ltd. - Consultancy in Advanced Engineering

So what does Fintelis do?

We specialise in getting return from advanced engineering technology, calling on a wide range of industrial experience. This covers many capabilities; examples are:

• Planning developments of existing capability into adjacent markets, and presenting a case for investment.
• Third party technology assessment for venture capital companies.
• Assessing requirements for advanced materials to be used in a new application, sourcing candidates, planning a HALT (highly accelerated life test) programme, sourcing providers and managing the test programme.
• Evaluating routes for CAE (computer aided engineering) in an advanced engineering process, and producing an evaluation programme.
• Representing a start up company at a Japanese industry trade fair, and dealing with potential Japanese suppliers.

We recognise that cash can be an issue for many of our customers, and will work with them to obtain support from funding bodies, and in some circumstances can consider work on a contingent basis (equity or investment percentage.)

In short, we optimise and protect the return on investment in advanced engineering.