We spoke to Walter Ramirez on his latest and most exciting venture yet- his own business- and what success looks like for him
What does your role involve?
“I am the Chief Innovation Officer and founder of a consulting firm called Innventik. We assist companies all over the world in business opportunity discovery, commercialization, and innovation fields of polymer elastomers and other technologies.
“One of my major areas of support is going with customers—either companies or technology centers—who are developing some technology and don’t know how to apply or reposition that technology into other fields. I help them make an assessment of which similar patents can be a threat or what other applications are.
“The use of PatSnap is vital because I can have an educated answer to almost any field of knowledge, even if I’m just an expert in this particular subject. With the PatSnap approach, I can comfortably give an opinion on which are the major players, the trends, and which are the most attractive technology fields.”
What are some of the key challenges that led you to start using PatSnap?
“My customers want to know what the trends are, technology-wise and market-wise. The other challenge is that if you want to excel, you need to be collaborative. You need to know who the strongest players in the field are so you can establish a technical alliance to develop an application. Some Innventik clients are also inviting people to their scientific advisory boards by looking at whether someone is technically more active or knowledgeable on a topic. That’s where the patent analysis can be done very easily with PatSnap.”
How does PatSnap fit into your day-to-day role?
“PatSnap helps me through the landscape mapping and cluster fields features. Those are absolutely fantastic, unique tools that you cannot find elsewhere. They give you insight into how particular technologies are applied and that is absolutely invaluable.
“In many of the consultancy sessions I provide, I wouldn’t be able to do that if I didn’t get the insights from PatSnap. Without any doubt, one of the most hated activities in any company is patent analysis. Being able to provide your analysis visually, especially the way PatSnap processes information, is absolutely amazing.
“My customers really appreciate that when I present, there’s nothing like that in the market.”
What does success look like for you and your clients?
“For me, it’s when my customers get the money in. My value proposition as a consultant is to provide valuable information, technically or commercially. That is why I set up Innventik—it’s an innovation consultancy but also a market development company.
“I’m connecting the potential customers for a particular technology, with the designers of that technology, product, or service. I identify and connect the leads, and that’s easy to do with PatSnap—you know which people are using certain molecules or polymers, then you connect. I can see what a company offers, and schedule a Skype teleconference with a third party, the suppliers, the potential customers, and myself.
“When there’s a deal, they get a contract and can scale their technology—that’s success for me.”
Are there personal drivers behind what you’re doing? Why this is so important to you?
“All my life, I’ve been in R &D. First as a research scientist, then as a research director, and then as a global corporate director. So, I have always been involved in innovation. I have founded technology centers, R&D labs, and new business spin-offs—but always with a multinational company. Now, I am trying to do that on my own—Innventik is just the starting point but I’m always looking for new ideas for a new spinoff, mainly in nanotechnology.
“That’s really my main goal and I have this book where I’m writing all the ideas I get when looking at patents and scientific publications. I’m not there yet but I will certainly get a good idea that will change the world—you’ll see!
“With PatSnap, I feel rewarded—it’s something that not even all the big companies have.”
“I have this capability to process information, as well as combine the tools and my knowledge so I can come up with good conclusions for my customers.”
