Connecting small businesses with researchers
Imperial Consultants work closely with Knowledge Connect, a London-based organisation that helps SMEs fund and find the specialist support they need.
Matteo Pantani, the owner of an Italian gelato shop in Covent Garden, worked with Professor Boris Maciejovsky of the Imperial College Business School.
Matteo had been running his gelato shop for two years before being approached by Knowledge Connect to take part in the scheme pairing up academics with SMEs.
“I’d never even heard of academic consultancy before” says Matteo. “But it’s so important for a business to have advice from someone more knowledgeable than you – it was a fantastic opportunity for my business.”
Knowledge Connect worked with Imperial Consultants to match Matteo’s business goals with the right academic within the Business School. Professor Boris Maciejovsky’s research interests are in behavioural economics. He developed a project that would help Matteo understand his customers better and be able to grow his business in the future.
Professor Maciejovsky and his team at Imperial performed statistical analyses on questionnaire results to help Scoop recognise the distribution in their customer base. Statistical analysis was also used to find out the impact of variables such as weather or day of the week on turnover compared to controlled variables such as marketing campaigns.
“Understanding the customer’s expectations and whether you’re meeting them is crucial to the success of a business.” explains Professor Maciejovsky. “Our research was designed to find out what Scoop customers expected and how Matteo could give that to them.”
Whilst behavioural economics is large in academic circles, awareness of it is only just reaching professional industries. Through Imperial Consultants, businesses have access to the latest research in this area. “Behavioural economics is an extremely interesting area with many applications to business,” says Professor Maciejovsky “but small businesses can find it hard to get the most out of the research. Being able to apply my work to help businesses like Scoop is rewarding for both sides.”
Matteo’s one business owner who definitely knows the benefits of academic consultancy now: “Boris talked me through the report – his advice was priceless. I’m definitely going to dedicate some of my budget to consultancy with Imperial in the future.”
For more information on how academic consultancy can help smaller businesses, please contact us.
