Alan is a niche-global innovation consulting firm based in EU and USA leveraging 20 years of experience of the founding partners in IT market innovations and International R&D management.

1. COMPANY PROFILE
Boston, USA / Rome, Italy • December 2013

2. DEDICATED TO ALAN
ALAN TURING IS WIDELY
CONSIDERED TO BE THE FATHER OF
COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE.
HIS WORK PIONEERED RESEARCH
ADVANCES IN SEVERAL FIELDS
(MATHEMATICS, LOGICS,
CRYPTOGRAPHY, AND - OF COURSE COMPUTER SCIENCE), CREATING
BRIDGES BETWEEN ACADEMIA,
INDUSTRY AND PUBLIC SPHERE.
ALAN ADVANTAGE IS INSPIRED BY
HIS WORK.

3. INNOVATION MADE SIMPLE
ALAN ADVANTAGE LEVERAGES THE MULTI DISCIPLINARY
EXPERTISE OF ITS OPEN INNOVATION NETWORK HELPING
ORGANIZATIONS IN THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTORS INNOVATE
AND GROW.
WE SCOUT, IDENTIFY, AND ASSESS CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGIES
SUPPORTING DISRUPTIVE BUSINESS (PROCESS/MODELS).
WE REFORM YOUR NEEDS. WE INVESTIGATE FOR HARD TO FIND
ADVANCED SOLUTIONS AND WE DELIVER MEASURABLE EFFECTIVE
SOLUTIONS.

4. MEANINGFUL TECHNOLOGIES
ALAN ADVANTAGE IS A NICHE-GLOBAL INNOVATION CONSULTING
FIRM BASED IN EU AND USA LEVERAGING 25 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE
OF THE FOUNDING PARTNERS IN IT MARKET INNOVATIONS AND
INTERNATIONAL R&D MANAGEMENT.
ALAN ADVANTAGE HELPS COMPANIES CREATE AND BRING TO
MARKET MEANINGFUL PRODUCTS, SERVICES, AND EXPERIENCES
THROUGH CROSS-DISCIPLINARY PROCESS DELIVERING LASTING
AND INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS ACROSS MULTIPLE TECHNOLOGIES,
PLATFORMS, AND INDUSTRIES.
ALAN ADVANTAGE FOCUSES ON INNOVATION AT THE CROSSROADS
BETWEEN TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY, BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES/
MARKET DEMAND AND USER ACCEPTANCE.
EXPERIENCE ALPHA VERSION OF OUR OPEN INNOVATION
PLATFORM, ENIGMA HUB AT WWW.ENIGMAHUB.COM/DRUPAL

5. APPROACH /1
WE START ALL OF OUR PROJECTS WITH A THOROUGH UNDERSTANDING OUR
CLIENTS’ NEEDS AND REQUIREMENTS SO WE CAN MAKE INFORMED
RECOMMENDATIONS AND DECISIONS. WE ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS, THEN
CAREFULLY CRAFT STRATEGIC SOLUTIONS BASED ON LONG-TERM GOALS AND
OBJECTIVES.
OPEN INNOVATION
There was a time not very long ago when companies primarily
used closed models for all their new product development.
They focused on their own resources – research,
development, marketing – to bring new products or services
to market. This model gave them control and seemed to work
well but in the last years a more effective way is coming: the
Open Innovation way, is an ecosystem including a lot of
contributors alla over the world, all coordinated by some
leading platforms, like Innocentive, Nine Sigma, and so on.
Open Innovation is first and foremost a mindset and an
approach to how you innovate. It’s based on premise that
there exists, outside of your company, a solution (or partial
solution) to our challenges and strategic needs.Open
Innovation is about making connections and collaborating to
realize a win-win outcome.
We use our partnership with the leaders in Open Innovation to
provide to our customers the best in Innovation wherever it
comes.

6. APPROACH /2
MULTIDISCIPLINARY PARTNER NETWORK
Our very peculiar way to work is adopting and sustaining a huge
network of scientific and technological partners around the
World, covering many Innovation fields: a multi disciplinar
partner network.
We’re working with partner from: robotics, mathematics,
information technology, physics, energy management,
telematics, human science, architecture, design.
SERVICE DESIGN
Service design is the activity of planning and organizing people,
infrastructure, communication and material components of a
service in order to improve its quality and the interaction
between service provider and customers. The purpose of
service design methodologies is to design according to the
needs of customers or participants, so that the service is userfriendly, competitive and relevant to the customers. The
backbone of this process is to understand the behavior of the
customers, their needs and motivations.
EXPERTISE MAPPING
Expertise, competence and knowledge are three highly
interconnected concepts, all relevant to what expert finders are
meant to deliver. Out Open Innovation platform, Enigma Hub,
includes an expert search and discovery engine, and aims to
better serve you with innovative solutions. Enigma Hub relies
on patent-pending technologies developed in partnership with
leading institutions by our R&D Labs.

7. CAPABILITIES /1
TECHNOLOGY SCOUTING AND BROKERAGE
Find emerging technologies by using a multitude of unique partners worldwide, thanks to
our direct NeTWork and Open Innovation channels we manage. The prime reason our
methodology is so effective is that most of our partners have access to their own extensive
networks, which gives your company unprecedented access to a global pool of emerging
technology leads.
R&D PROGRAM AND PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
Globalization of markets and new business practices are prompting high-tech companies
to reconsider their competitive strategy. The increasing complexity of technologies in
addition to shorter product life cycles are also forcing companies to rely on R&D as a
source of strategy. More importantly, firms are inclined to evaluate their technologies
from a portfolio’s perspective in which a set or a sub-set of R&D projects is evaluated
together, in relation to each other. Portfolio techniques can help strategic managers in
evaluating whether a portfolio of products is adequate from the perspective of long-term
corporate growth and profitability. Obviously, when R&D projects are evaluated relative to
one another, technical capability management of such projects must be carried out
concurrently.

8. CAPABILITIES /2
INNOVATION MANAGEMENT
Innovation management is the discipline of managing processes in Innovation. It can be used to
develop both product, service and organizational innovation. Innovation management includes a set of
tools that allow managers and engineers to cooperate with a common understanding of goals and
processes. The focus of innovation management is to allow the organization to respond to an external
or internal opportunity, and use its creative efforts to introduce new ideas, processes or
products. Importantly, innovation management is not relegated to R&D; it involves workers at every
level in contributing creatively to a company’s development, manufacturing, and marketing.
PROJECT GOVERNANCE
Project governance is the management framework within which project decisions are made. Project
governance is a critical element of any project since while the accountabilities and responsibilities
associated with an organization’s business as usual activities are laid down in their organizational
governance arrangements, seldom does an equivalent framework exist to govern the development of
its capital investments (projects).
INVESTMENTS AND GRANTS
In a world where many people are becoming familiar with the concept of crowd funding, and where the
sustain abilities of Innovations is often grounded on financial aspects, we work hard to propose to our
customers any kind of access to: institutional investors, crowd funding initiatives, USA and EU funds,
and so on.

9. EXPERIENCE /1
SOCIAL INNOVATION
Society, innovation and social capital: Alan Advantage carries out socio-economic research
activities with the objective to promote innovation and sustainable growth of people,
enterprises and territories. In its research activities, Alan Advantage adopts an
interdisciplinary approach that combines, and develops both quantitative and qualitative
methodologies, following when possible the research-action principles. In fact, analysis and
interpretation are combined with ad-hoc interventions that aim at changing the analysed
context, thanks to the active participation of relevant actors. In a virtuous cycle: research
creates knowledge which is transformed in concrete actions. These, thanks to the
experience, increase knowledge, and so on.
SMART CITIES
Alan Advantage understands how complex cities work and we work with people looking for
solid research and analysis, compelling communications, new ideas, and provocative insights,
whether we are creating communications plans, creative city plans, sustainability programs,
public engagement processes, white papers, or city branding. Our broad understanding of
how issues, trends, and questions interlock to produce game-changing ideas for our clients.

10. EXPERIENCE /2
ENERGY AND UTILITIES
The speed of innovation outside the walls of utilities outstrips the speed of innovation within. As new
and disruptive vendors, technologies, and business models enter the market, many utilities have
seemed unsure about what their role is or should be. Technology advancements are broadening
customer access to a wide range of new energy services. But technology alone is never enough:
customers must feel comfortable incorporating these advancements into their daily lives. Utilities are
well-suited to providing customers with answers on a wide range of energy services and moving them
up the adoption curve. They have already achieved significant success in areas such as energy
efficiency.
INSURANCE TELEMATICS
We cover alla kinds of Innovations inside this area: fleet management, insurance telematics
infrastructures, driving behavior, crash analysis, traffic information systems, carbon emissions
reduction, car based video recording, and so on. We’re able to support Innovators who want to use
Telematics to have mobile machine to machine new business models.
SUSTAINABILITY & CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY
Anchored in our Strategy Consulting offering, sustainability and corporate responsibility (CR) are
central to Customers core business. For us, sustainability is about the “triple bottom line”—long-term
social equity, economic prosperity, and environmental performance. Corporate responsibility is about
maintaining the necessary controls to minimize risks, while creating positive impacts for our
stakeholders and the brand. A sustainable and responsible approach results in value creation for the
company, the employees, the customers, the shareholders and society as a whole.

11. EXPERIENCE /3
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Telecommunications service providers in Asia Pacific have enjoyed astounding growth rates
of mobile devices and subscribers over the past few years, fuelled by economic growth and
an expanding middle class population.
However, despite this unprecedented period of expansion, the future market value of
telecommunications operators is under threat. Two main factors are challenging the
sustainability of current business models: crumbling consumer loyalty and the
fragmentation of the value chain due to competition from new internet players. To thrive
- indeed, to survive - telecommunications operators must choose a path of innovation.
Further, they must put in place strategies to assist their innovative efforts to have a good
chance of meeting their stated requirements.
These strategies encompass the technical, organizational and cultural. This paper sets out
ways in which companies can implement innovative measures to position themselves for
growth, and to emerge among the winners in the rapidly evolving telecommunications
arena.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
We have three decades of experiences in Innovations involving Information Technology. We’re
always aligned with the best worldwide innovation centers, so continuously intercepting new
trends useful to our customers.

12. COLLABORATION NETWORK (RESEARCH)
CNR – IRPPS Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche –
Istituto di Ricerche sulla Popolazione e le Politiche
Sociali
Fachhochschule Salzburg GmbH (Salzburg University
of Applied Sciences)
Harokopio University of Athens
IITK – Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Institut du Développement Durable et des Relations
Internationales (IDDRI), Francia
Institut Veolia Environnement, Francia
International Institute for Geo-Information Science
and Earth Observation, Paesi Bassi
ITA – Instituto Tecnologico de Aragon
Lancaster University
La Sapienza University, Rome
LSE – London School of Economics
Middlesex University Higher Education Corporation
MIT, Boston USA
National Agricultural Research Foundation, Grecia
Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg
PLUS Zentrum für Geoinformatik Z_GIS, Austria
Potsdam Insitut fuer Klimafolgenforschung
Stevens Institute of Technology, USA
Università di Salerno (Dip. Informatica)
Università del Sannio

13. CONTACTS • alanadvantage @ alanadvantage.com