Module: Market Research Lecturer: Dr. Louise Maguire.

Course: Marketing Practise. Year: 2.

Date of Issue: February 2016 Submission Date: 08 April 2016

Word Count: 3354 Words.

Submitted By: Shannon Bardin – X14503493

Adam O’Neill – X14110539

Dayna Sara Baker – X14110610

Leon Kelly – X14347786

Damhan Perry – X14425832

Grainne O’Brien – X14700909

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Table of Contents:

1. Abstract Page 03

2. Introduction ….. Page 04

3. Literature Review ….. Page 05

3a. Theme 1 ….. Page 05

3b. Theme 2 ….. Page 06

3c. Theme 3 ….. Page 06

4. Methodology ….. Page 07

4a. Quantitative Research ….. Page 07

4b. Qualitative Research ….. Page 09

5. Findings ….. Page 10

6. Summary of key Findings ….. Page 23

7. Discussion ….. Page 24

8. Conclusions ….. Page 27

9. Recommendations ….. Page 28

Bibliography ….. Page 30

Appendix 1 ….. Page 33

Appendix 2 ….. Page 36

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1. Abstract

This piece investigated the potential for a new service offering on campus in the National

College of Ireland (NCI). A small student start up wanted to introduce an Innovation Hub to

NCI and there seemed to be a strong opportunity for the service. The aim of this report was to

establish if there was an interest in the service and what was expected from the service by the

NCI population. To find the answers 3 main themes were decided upon: Idea, Use and

Location & Design. Comparison of academic sources in the area of innovation, services and

design were used along with a sample of the student population gave clear findings under all

themes. An interview with an individual with experience in starting the business incubation

area in NCI allowed for a better understanding of the benefits but also the drawbacks to

starting and offering a service on NCI’s campus. Furthermore the study provided evidence

that the innovation hub would be extremely beneficial to NCI, what was needed from the hub

and how it would be designed.

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2. Introduction

“If you look at history, Innovation doesn’t come just from giving people

incentives; it comes from creating environments where their ideas can

connect.”

Steven Johnson.

Innovation hubs or centres are buildings, centres or rooms that help foster innovation,

creativity and skills. They can be organisations run by the government, industries and

universities or colleges. Innovation centres are open to students, entrepreneurs, start-ups and

researchers. According to Microsoft Innovation Centre (MIC) –

“As knowledge and innovation becomes the primary catalysts for economic growth, Innovation

Centres can play a vital role in fostering innovation and grow sustainable local economies by

generating powerful new ideas through training, education and knowledge transfer” (ECU, 2011).

With NCI student levels increasing they are expected to expand their campus in the

near future. Innovate@NCI, is a start-up set up by Six NCI Marketing students. They want to

position NCI with the likes of DIT, DCU and UCD. Colleges in Dublin that already have

Innovation Centres for students.

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3. Literature Review:

“The first step in developing a body of knowledge essentially begins

with searching previous research to understand how far the people in

the field of interest have gone through the issue”

(Kumar & Phrommathed, 1997)

To create a fair and unbiased report on the envisaged innovation hub for NCI the report has

considered other sources to challenge and back up the new service idea. The literature review

will be broken into 3 main themes; Idea, Use and Location & Design.

*Please note: These themes will be followed through all sections of the report hereon in to

offer a clearer understanding of the research presented.

Theme 1 - The Idea:

Services are described as deeds, efforts, or performances by berry (1980). “The EU has

provided funding to establish industry-led Technology Centres, which are based in

universities. There are now 15 centres in Ireland” according to European commission report,

2015.

Rogan (2003) feels that Ireland has a “weakness in entrepreneurship in accordance to

economic commentators.” Deeb (2015) says age doesn’t matter when it comes to

entrepreneurship but “experience does, and often times, that comes with age.” He goes onto

say that “smart entrepreneurs that lack experience, can offset that by surrounding themselves

with experienced mentors.”

Rogan (2003) continues onto to say that entrepreneurship “fosters innovation” and is vital for

the “creation, growth and development of business in Ireland” because they use their “ideas,

skill and resources” to “create products and processes new to the world”.

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Theme 2 - The Use:

Bessant & Tidd feel that getting innovation to happen depends on a focused and determined

drive- a passion to change things, which we call entrepreneurship. They continue on to

explain “The key to innovation & entrepreneurship is of course, people. And the simple

challenge is how to enable them to deploy their creativity and share their knowledge to bring

about change.”

Toinonen & Friederici (2015) tell that “Innovation hubs have been widely celebrated by

practitioners and policymakers for their ability to boost creativity and collaboration.” They

tell that innovation hubs “offer hackathons and pitch nights” that “further enhance the value

of physical space” and “Blogs, Twitter feeds, and hub-specific platforms allow participants’

interactions to unfold in various forms online.”

Theme 3 - Location & Design:

Waits (2013) says an innovation hub should be designed “providing all sorts of critical

ingredients for innovation—smart people, research institutions, entrepreneurial training

and mentors, professional networks as well as those place-making attributes (e.g.,

walkability, public spaces, and mixed land use) that are known to support innovation.”

Freiders Et Al. (2012) tells that “Colours are an important part of our sensations and

senses” and that “our vision and emotions are connected because they are both

processes of the right hemisphere of our brain.” According to Saengpetch (2014) “Blue

is universally known as an excellent colour for productivity and is a good colour to paint

the entire office” and “yellow helps stimulate creativity, so designers and people who

need to be creative for their job should have colour integrated into their work space.”

Toinonen & Friederici (2015) describe the typical location of an innovation hub as “set

up in metropolitan area, within facilities that share striking stylistic similarities” and they

in vision “a typical hub space featuring wooden furniture, large desks, brick walls,

whiteboards, a foosball table, at least some artwork, shared kitchen spaces, a coffee bar,

meeting rooms, and bean bags.”

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4. Methodology

“Research is about enquiry, it’s about systematic observation or

investigation to find things out.”

(Yvonne McGivern, 2013)

Methodology is a support tool that frameworks the entire output of your research findings. By

performing the correct elements of both quantitative & qualitative research one must support

their reasoning’s of methods and reflect on why they were resourceful avenues of choice. By

doing so, you are representing the authenticity of any findings you have created by backing

up the research with credible information.

Quantitative Research

“Qualitative research is about collecting data from a relatively large

sample or population in a structured and standardised way”

(McGivern, 2013)

Quantitative research is about implementing structured formats to help produce reliable

statistics representing a sample of the chosen population. Quantitative research acts as a

population screenshot to help calculate the position of your concept / goals / objectives and

occurring errors within a sector. With Quantitative research, a sector can identify key aspects

such as whether there is a potential market for a product/service. (McGivern, 2013)

“Questionnaires are structured data collection tools used mainly in qualitative research”

(McGivern, 2013)

The method of choice was to accumulate a structured online questionnaire through Survey

Monkey. The benefit of using questionnaires is that it grasp a sample population perception.

The questionnaire sample was NCI student focussed and compiled of 10 questions which

were a compilation of both open / closed ended questions to help create a mixture of both

optional /descriptive responses. The questionnaire was set to a standard of “forced-

completion” to help avoid absent data (McGivern, 2013).

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Creating an online survey helps create a more fluid perspective on what direction a sector

should pursue when analysing and implementing. The population sample was NCI students

18 to 75 years old, both male and female.

A number of problems were encountered during the survey process. These included:

1. The survey was set to a standard where a participant could not skip a question.

However, some respondents left the survey early, leaving 11 incomplete survey

responses. Respondents could have left for many reasons and unknown.

Therefore the sample population dropped from 100 NCI respondents to 89.

2. Ensuring that the sample population was representative of NCI student also proved

difficult both with responses and equal gender division (50/50).

This was overcome by using the college distribution lists provided by the NCI IT

department provided a distribution list. Only NCI students were sent the survey

link.

3. Due to a high volume of online surveys being distributed amongst students, the target

rate was relatively stagnant.

With time becoming an issue an incentive was implemented to solve this problem.

The prize of a one €20 gift voucher for “Seven Wonders” was offered to the students

who completed the survey. By implementing an incentive it increased the chances of

generating better analysis and findings.

*The graph above shows how an incentive drove up responses

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Qualitative research:

“Qualitative research is the understanding why individuals and

groups think and behave in the way that they do“

(Keegan, 2009)

Qualitative research is about getting rich, detailed and descriptive understanding of the

topic in hand, rather than pure quantitative measurement. Qualitative research is good for

exploratory or descriptive research. It aims to reach below the surface to understand what

people really think. The benefits of qualitative research is that it allows for more

flexibility and collects customer insights, opinions and views which quantitative research

lacks. The downfall is that respondents can be untruthful, exaggerate and at times say

what they think the researcher wants to hear. The qualitative methods chosen for this

research piece falls under an interrogative method rather than observational data

gathering. Interrogative methods gather information and data through in-depth interviews,

focus groups and workshops.an but this leaves it open to be less reliable.

A semi-structured interview consisting of 7 questions was chosen because it allowed the

respondent to gain a better understanding and encouraged further detail from the

interviewee. The interview was held on campus during reading week with Bertie Kelly,

the business incubation manager for the National College of Ireland (NCI). The research

was conducted offline, face to face so as it was easier to maintain the conversation and

therefore gain better quality data. The reason an interview was chosen was to get

information directly from the source (Primary Research), this was particularly essential as

no secondary research or information was available on an innovation hub in NCI as the

service hadn’t been offered to date. The interview allowed to build a better understanding

of the potential possibilities and drawbacks of opening an innovation hub in the National

College of Ireland. (See appendix for questions)

Nine students were randomly selected to answer one question on campus. The question

asked was “As a student what services/benefits would you want from a student innovation

hub?” This allowed for students wants and needs to be understood through a qualitative

approach, which could be used to be back up the quantitative research.

(See responses under theme Use in findings)

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4. Findings

Part 1 – General Information

Question 1 – What is your age?

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The majority of participants in the survey were between the ages of 18-24, this made up 80.90% of the survey, and a minority of 1.12% that

were between 45-54 years of age, and 1.12% were 75 and older .

Question 2 – What is your gender?

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The majority of participants in the survey were made up of female, 56.18%. While 43.82% were male.

Question 3 – Do you understand what an innovation centre/hub is and what it’s used

for?

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The majority of participants (20.09%) kind of get what an innovation hub is used for and the minority of participants (11.24%) were definite that they knew what it was

used for.

Part 2 – Theme 1 – The Idea of Innovation

Question 4 – How likely are you to use the Innovation Centre at NCI?

Not at all likely

Slightly likely

Moderately Likely

Very Likely

Extremely Likely

0.00% 5.00% 10.00% 15.00% 20.00% 25.00% 30.00% 35.00%

How likely are you to use the Innovation Centre in NCI

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The majority of participants (32.58%) said that they are moderate likely to use the innovation centre if it is set up in NCI but only 15.73% of participants said they

would be extremely likely to use the service.

Question 5 - Do you think an Innovation Centre is beneficial for NCI?

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The majority of participants (87.64%) said they feel an innovation centre would be beneficial for NCI and only 12.36% said that they don’t think that an innovation

centre would be beneficial to NCI.

Question 6 – Give 2 Words to describe what an Innovation Centre is?

Some of the words participants used to describe an innovation centre were, futuristic and

progressive.

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Part 3 – Theme 2 – The use of an Innovation Centre

Question 7 – Please choose which of the following places the Innovation hub should

be?

Question 8 - What kind of workshops would you like to see available on a weekly basis?

You can chose more than one.

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The majority of participants (73.03%) thought the innovation hub would be a great place to generate ideas and the minority

(38.20%) said it should be used as a place to hold meetings with groups.

Question 9 – As a student what other services/benefits would you like to see from the

NCI innovation centre?

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The majority of participants (60.67%) were interested in seeing all of the workshops being available and only 5.62% were interested in adding other

workshops that had not been mentioned.

26%

35%

21%

18%

As a student what other services/benefits would you like to see from

the NCI innovation centre?Workshops around business and start up'sEntrepreneur workshopsLocal business and start up talksReal life Projects

Question 9 – As a student what other services/benefits would you like to see from the NCI innovation centre? RespondentsWorkshops around business and start up's 23Entrepreneur workshops 31Local business and start up talks 19Real life Projects 16

89

35% of respondents wanted entrepreneur workshops and 26% workshops around businesses and start up’s.

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The one question survey responses:

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“Mentor scheme to pair aspiring innovators and entrepreneurs with suitably experienced people”

Female, 18-24

“Teamwork. I found it difficult to work in a team that was not my friends. Same like going to real world, to work, you don't know anyone there and still you have to be a team player. How to work with people and especially how to deal with difficulties”

Male, 18-24

“First-hand experience with emerging technologies”Male, 25 - 34

“That I could progress with my business idea and get the help I need”

Female,18 - 24

“That I could progress with my business idea and get the help I need”

Male, 18-24

“Past Success stories about NCI students” Male, 18-24

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"Guest speakers and seminars” Male, 18-24

“I’d like to have experience start-ups come in and hire us for projects they may have or research”

Female, 25-34

“Competitions like the current innovation challenge. A Dragons Den challenge. Group trips to events such as the social media summit, web summit, student summit, talks from foreign speaker e.g Gary Vaynerchuck was recently speaking in Ireland”

Male, 18-24

Part 4 – Theme 3 – Location and Design of the Innovation Hub

Question 10 – What kind of desired setting do you envisage?

This woordle dictates what students want from or in the innovation hub and design.

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Findings from Interview with Bertie Kelly, NCI:

The idea

The idea is to have an innovation hub for students in NCI. When interviewed Bertie Kelly

he said “that it was a good idea”, however the main issue Bertie Kelly raised was

“getting funding will be difficult”

The theme use:

“The use of the innovation hub is to have a creative environment for students to use when

doing course assignments, student based businesses or start-ups.” Bertie Kelly said that

“the downfall will be groups will have little direction” and a main concern will be

“groups wasting time in the innovation hub”.

Location:

The innovation hub will be located in NCI in Dublin on the 4th floor. However when

Bertie Kelly was interviewed he told us that NCI have a Business Incubation Centre on

the 2nd floor and he said “this would be a prime location to put it” however “there is a lack

of room”.

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5. Summary of Key Findings:

The key findings of this assignment is a summary of the primary research we found from

doing the research during the course of our assignment. All of our findings came from our

analysis of the surveys which we distributed. To make the key findings easier to interpret we

have put them into bullet points. The key findings are:

The majority age of respondents was 18-24 years of age.

56.18% of respondents were female.

43.82% of respondents were male.

Majority of respondents kind of understand what an Innovation hub is and what it is

used for.

When asked whether they would use the Innovation hub majority of respondents said

that they would moderately likely use it.

87.64% of respondents said they think an Innovation hub is beneficial to The NCI.

Inspiring, Creative, Revolutionary, Idealistic were some of the words used to describe

an Innovation hub by respondents.

73% of respondents believe an innovation hub should be a place to generate ideas and

be more creative.

Respondents believed all of the workshops named should be included on a weekly

basis.

Some of the desired settings include: Comfortable, Casual, Encouraging, Modern,

Colourful and Creative.

35% of students surveyed would like to see entrepreneur business and start up

workshops.

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6. Discussion:

Theme 1: The Idea

Services are described as “deeds, efforts, or performances” (Berry, 1980). The idea is to

provide NCI with an innovation hub for students to use. They would be able to use it for

assignments and business start-up ideas. When the respondents were asked “how likely

you to use the innovation hub” ; 61% of the respondents said they are likely to use it.

Also when asked 87% said that an innovation centre would be beneficial to NCI.

The idea is to create a creative environment, for people to create exciting, inventive

project. The innovation hub will be an area for students to develop, work and create

promising projects in a team environment. Rogan (2003) continues onto to say that

entrepreneurship “fosters innovation” and is vital for the “creation, growth and

development of business in Ireland”.

Theme 2: Use

Bessant & Tidd feel “that getting innovation to happen depends on a focused and

determined drive- a passion to change things, which we call entrepreneurship.” 60% of

survey respondents said they would like entrepreneurial workshops. 35% of respondents

surveyed online wanted entrepreneur workshops and 26% workshops around businesses

and start up’s. Students surveyed on campus also said they would expect the innovation

hub to “to help me progress with my business idea.” These research findings may indicate

a strong need for entrepreneurship and how to start a business workshops in the

innovation centre.

Toinonen & Friederici (2015) tell that “Innovation hubs have been widely celebrated by

practitioners and policymakers for their ability to boost creativity and collaboration.”

60% of survey respondents said they wanted workshops such as prototyping, reinventing

and new product development. These type of workshops would enhance collaboration

and encourage creativity and therefore this indicates that practical workshops should be

considered for the innovation hub.

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Bessant & Tidd explain “The key to innovation & entrepreneurship is of course, people.

And the simple challenge is how to enable them to deploy their creativity and share their

knowledge to bring about change.” 73% of respondents said that an innovation hub

should be “A place to generate ideas or be more creative” and 55% said “a place to bring

your business, product and service ideas and trial and test them.” Students surveyed said

they wanted it to be somewhere “to get help”, “experience guest speakers and seminars”,

“experience start-up’s” and “get first-hand experience with innovation.” Bertie Kelly said

“The use of the innovation hub is to have a creative environment for students to use when

doing course assignments, student based businesses or start-ups.” In his interview. The

above strongly suggest that the innovation hub needs to be a space for collaboration so

individuals can learn from each other, show each other their ideas and test them. It also

shows that students want to meet and learn from people in the industry and this could

encourage creativity and motivate entrepreneurship in students as they will see how

possible it is to create a successful product or service can be.

Toinonen & Friederici (2015) said innovation hubs “offer hackathons and pitch nights.”

One student surveyed said he would like to see “innovative challenges” and “dragons den

trials.” These give ideas for some games, challenges and nights could be held in the

innovation hub.

Theme 3 - Location & Design:

Freiders Et Al. (2012) tells that “Colours are an important part of our sensations and

senses. Blue is universally known as an excellent colour for productivity and is a good

colour to paint the entire office” and “yellow helps stimulate creativity”. Colourful,

bright and fun is also mentioned by survey respondents.

Bertie Kelly felt the idea was established that the innovation centre could be built and

“placed within the current NCI business incubation centre.” This shows a starting location

for the innovation hub.

Toinonen & Friederici (2015) describe the typical location of an innovation hub as “set

up in metropolitan area, within facilities that share striking stylistic similarities” and they

in vision “a typical hub space featuring wooden furniture, large desks, brick walls,

whiteboards, a foosball table, at least some artwork, shared kitchen spaces, a coffee bar,

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meeting rooms, and bean bags”. When the survey was sent out to respondents, they

envisage the innovation hub to have a modern relaxed setting with bean bags, sofas and

have an open, fun and bright area, which will facilitate and encouraging and chilled

atmosphere. This is the desired setting that the respondents looked for.

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7. Conclusions

Theme 1: The Idea

Overall the research collected was majority positive, and from the findings it is suggested that

students do want to see the service in the college.

Theme 2: Use

Concluding: Overall the research suggested the type of workshops, activities and industry

collaborations that the innovation centre should offer. These show what the innovation hub

will be used for by students.

Theme 3: Location & Design:

Based on our finding the innovation hub would be set up within NCI to begin and later move

to a larger city centre location. The atmosphere will be shown by the design, colous and items

used. A relaxed and modern vibe will be considered when decorating.

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8. Recommendations:

The following are recommendations for the small Irish student start up on their service idea.

These recommendations have been created on the back of research findings in this piece.

Theme 1: The Idea

Based on the research it has been proven that there is a demand for the ‘Innovative@NCI’

Hub service within NCI. The service itself would work well within the college environment

due to a number of different factors:

The close ties with the surrounding businesses in the area – the college

location is in the heart of the financial district of Dublin.

From the survey, it was proven that majority of the students actually want to

see this service implemented within the college, and would participate if given

the opportunity.

And finally, It was proven during the quantitative study (survey monkey

questionnaire) that majority of students would find Innovate@NCI beneficial

to NCI itself.

*See Question 5 – Do you think an Innovation Centre is beneficial for NCI.

Theme 2: Use

There are many possibilities for activities, collaborations and workshops. For the

recommendation of this theme a weekly has been designed to show what the innovation

hub could offer students on a weekly basis based on the findings and what students

wanted:

Day Morning Evening

Monday Local Business Talk Pitch Night

Tuesday Prototype Building Speed Dating Ideas

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Wednesday Entrepreneur Workshop Start Up Talk

Thursday Working with a start up Dragons Den Trial

Friday Build your own Business Idea Trading Event

Saturday Innovation Breakfast Networking Businesses and Students

Theme 3: Location & Design:

According to the findings and research conducted the colours blue and yellow will be

dominant in the design of the innovation hub. It will have a relaxed, chilled, encouraging

atmosphere. The interior will have a comfortable relaxed feel with bean bags and sofas. It

will be opened planned with a lot of room for collaboration and talks which are top of the

agenda for use. The following image shows the potential layout of the innovation hub. It

will start in a small area in NCI’s current building but will hopefully move to a larger city

centre location or to a prime classroom in a new NCI building.

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Appendix 1: Survey Questions

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Appendix 2: Interview Questions

Questions asked to Bertie Kelly:

Q1. What do you think of innovation hub in NCI?

Q2. Do NCI already have an innovation hub?

Q3. What do you think some of the downfalls would be?

Q4. Is there anywhere in NCI where we can put an innovation hub?

Q5. Is there any issues setting up an innovation hub?

Q6. If NCI were to expand do you think the innovation hub will be a success?

Q7. Could NCI provide funding for an innovation centre?

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