Examples of recent projects
Building an ecosystem organisation
With the support of the Dutch government, we developed a greenfield cluster organisation in the Middle-East. It is now a generally recognised food cluster that acquired the bronze label for cluster management excellence last year and is currently going for the silver label. The support provided began with the organisation of workshops on ecosystems and what ambition was realistic and achievable in this case. After this, different stakeholders formed a ‘coalition of the willing’. Subsequently, it concerned all aspects of the design of such an organisation (target group formulation, the development of service packages, financing models, governance, etc.) up to and including the co-selection of the cluster manager and acting as a sounding board during implementation.
Developing a Business-2-Business permanent showcase
Many countries around the world show great interest in Dutch solutions for future-proof food chains. However, during many visits to the Netherlands by foreign parties, the possibilities to show the full wealth of solutions are limited. Hence the need to develop a permanent ‘showcase’ of Dutch companies from the agrifood sector in a permanent location. To this end, we developed initial concepts and tested the ambitions with a large number of stakeholders. Currently, we are considering whether this interest can also be translated into a healthy business case.
Investment fund
A large investment fund wondered whether the agrifood sector offered enough interesting investment opportunities for them. The fund specialises in helping companies that already have a minimum size (scale-ups) at the start of the investment grow large. The key question for this fund was whether the ambition was justified to also focus on the agrifood sector. To this end, the most relevant (investment) trends in the sector at home and abroad were mapped out. Subsequently, profiles of promising young agrifood companies were mapped based on agreed criteria from established lists. This enabled the customer to arrive at a well-considered decision.
Training
We trained cluster managers for two Swiss initiatives. The aim was not only to share knowledge in a general sense about the different aspects of managing cluster organisations. By also using the organisations’ own strategic plans as a guideline for the training, the cluster managers could reformulate these plans considerably. Moreover, it enabled them to better explain to stakeholders what resources they required to achieve the intended goals.
