Roads to Resilience

Director). A key benefit of the venture for TTP was it explored the areas where new capabilities would be needed in the near future, for new and emerging markets. The Carbon Trust Incubator was not profitable in its own right, but provided “ access to and visibility in and of everything that’s going on in the UK, and some of Europe, to see where the opportunities are for us ” (Managing Director). Since the company intends to remain employee owned, its capacity to attract large investments will remain relatively low. Company growth and “ the financial strength of the business [and the ability to invest] has actually come from retaining profits, so being profitable ” (Chairman). This conservative investment strategy means that “ We basically aim for every project to be on a profitable basis ” (Finance Director). Business risk Business risks at TTP can be viewed as resulting from the risks associated with individual projects and risks across the portfolio. For single projects the risks are related to contracts, liability and confidentiality. Contracts are a critical factor for a contract R&D firm. “ Quite a lot of the risk associated with the development, effectively, is managed through the contractual relationship ” (Chairman). Since contracts have always been so important to TTP, it has developed its capabilities to a very high level and offers contract development as a consultancy service. Whilst financial risk is typically owned by the client, technology and product development carries a huge potential for exposure to future business risks such as product liability, particularly in the medical and life sciences. TTP recognises these risks and “ has insurance policies in place for that: professional indemnity insurance ” (Chairman). One other important aspect of business risk is confidentiality. This is a particular concern where multiple partners are involved in one project. Typically in these scenarios, TTP takes the view that “ we can’t carry the risk of a partner breaching confidentiality, so they have to have their own relationship with the customer ” (Chairman). Across the portfolio, there are two main issues. As already mentioned, TTP must operate with “ a relatively low forward workload … part of it is the responsiveness that if you have too much then you become less flexible ” (Managing Director). The diverse range of groups and projects, and the capability to share expertise across many of them means that “ quite a lot of the portfolio risk is dealt with just by the sheer structure of the company ” (Finance Director). Corporate governance, the amalgamation of policies and standards, in TTP, is managed using a similar approach as with projects: “ So, we have an AGM and an EGM, and they get their approval. But the philosophy is the same as with the project leaders, basically. As far as possible, you let them get on with it and do what’s sensible ” (Chairman). Governance needs to be pragmatic, and compliance to governance standards poses an opportunity as well as a challenge: “ some of our engineers work in areas like medical devices where there is a lot of regulatory imposed process. Naturally there are ISO standards and things like that to which we must conform, but we try to ensure that process doesn’t stifle creativity and innovation ” (Chairman). Leadership and governance

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Appendix A Case study: The Technology Partnership