R&D CONSULTING SERVICES
R&D CONSULTING SERVICES
Firms undertake research and development to create new products and services. R&D often starts with the desire to create a new product for a customer or meet an emerging market need. For most businesses R&D projects are usually funded from working capital, cash reserves or loans. Because the research outcomes are by no means certain, these funds are put at risk. R&D is often a one-off activity and may be outside your firm’s normal capabilities. Over the last 25 years, Applied Support Services have assisted hundreds of innovative New Zealand companies scope, plan and budget their R&D projects. We have worked with firms in many sectors including agribusiness, biotechnology, chemicals, electronics, food, horticulture, Information Technology, manufacturing, packaging and transport.
R&D Project Plans and Budgets
Applied Support Services can help you prepare project research development project plans and budgets, including:
- Creating the project scope
- Documenting project requirements and specifications
- Obtaining quotations from external contractors and experts
- Identifying internal and external project resources required
- Creating the project budget
- Establishing milestones, go/kill points and deadlines
- Preparing and documenting the R&D plan
The Business Case for R&D
Whether you are developing a new product, service or process, it should support a specific business need. Your business case captures the reasoning for investing in an R&D project and argues how it will address that need. Because future sales from your new product or service are not certain, the business case helps you evaluate the relative value and risk of a project. We can assist you with:
- Building the business case for developing the new product or service
- Preparing the market analysis and revenue forecasts
- Estimating the direct costs of producing the new product or service
- Estimating other commercialisation costs including marketing, sales and administration
- Establishing the payback period for the R&D investment
Calculating and Recording R&D Expenditure
The IRD and funding agencies all provide guidelines on how research and development expenditure is defined. Mostly they refer to accounting definitions of R&D including FRS 13 and NZIAS 38. Some publish lists of activities and expenditures that are specifically excluded as R&D. Generally expenditure includes salaries and wages of employees wholly or partially engaged in R&D, overheads apportioned to R&D, materials and consumables used in R&D, depreciation and external expenditure on R&D experts, consultants and contractors. We can provide claimants with a framework and a template on how to calculate R&D expenditure and how to prepare, maintain and substantiate R&D records.
Managing, Monitoring and Controlling R&D Projects
Many R&D projects fail to complete or generate commercial returns because of simple factors like inadequate planning and project control. Many R&D projects go well over anticipated budgets, often for no other reason than loss of focus and direction. We can assist you manage, monitor and control your R&D projects by:
- Providing easy to use systems to monitor internal time and cost spent on R&D
- Monitoring and controlling external costs
- Tracking the progress of the project’s technical objectives
- Reporting on project milestones, go/kill points and deadlines
Valuing Intellectual Property from R&D
Tracking and recording the time and cost of your research and development projects can help you quantify the value of the intellectual property arising from the research. Applied Support Services have easy to use project time and cost recording systems that let you track and record R&D project costs. These systems were used successfully for claiming R&D tax credits and provide a basis for valuing the intellectual property arising from your research programme.
