GCV Analytics, Global Corporate Venturing’s data unit, has partnered with corporate venturing consultancy firm Bell Mason Group, led by Heidi Mason (pictured), to provide a Benchmark and Roadmap Service, which is being rolled out as one as three initiatives by CVI², an organisation of specialised corporate venturing and innovation service providers. See all initiatives here

Using GCV Analytics market data, the service will be targeted: “For new or reinvented (one to three year-old) corporate venture capital (CVC) programs: best practices status review of current operations and plans.”  This programme will provide information on CVC market dynamics, trends and competitive position to educate management and help set expectations for urgency/immediacy of action. It will provide corporations with a “prescriptive go-forward roadmap and milestones”providing a framework to develop a CVC unit.

The programme “highlights best practice fundamentals and success factors for the charter, structure, governance model, communications, and operational framework for a CVC program aligned with other innovation activities.”  The four to five week project will conclude with an interactive workshop and an action planning session.

Bell Mason will also “recommend CVC staffing/professional skills development requirements and options (with DLA Piper).”

The work with DLA Piper on the Benchmark and Roadmap Service, also comes alongside a CVC Investment Professionals and Teams Master Class Curriculum for Board and Observers Roles & Responsibilities, Term Sheets and Intellectual Property Strategies. The new professional development ‘master class’ curriculum is designed for rapid acquisition of ‘know how’ for CV&I teams with legal and business best practices in CV Board and Observer Roles & Responsibilities, Term Sheets and Intellectual Property Strategies.

Bell Mason will also partner with JThelander Consulting on Corporate Venture Capital Investment Professionals and Team Compensation Solutions, which will providecustomised CVC compensation strategies and structures to build and retain high performance CVC teams. Thelander will be launching a 2016 CVC Bonus Survey at our Global Corporate Venturing and Innovation Summit on January 27 and 28 in Sonoma, California this week. The CVI² Charter Members who have collaborated on these new services are speaking at the GCVI Summit.

This followed the 2015 Thelander CVI² 2015 CVC Comp Survey Report and Analysis being released last month.

Heidi Mason, managing partner of Bell Mason Group and CVI² co-founder, said: “Strategic Innovation is a topic on the Board agendas of virtually every major company around the world today.  Corporations without core capabilities in corporate venturing and innovation, new market and ecosystem understanding, technology and platform awareness, high performance partnering skills and the willingness to compete for and retain high performance CV&I teams will be progressively left behind and ill-equipped in the race for position and growth in quickly changing global marketplaces.”

Mark Radcliffe, DLA Piper partner, co-chair and founder of the firm’s Innovation Practice and CVI²co-founder, said: “Most companies do not have the full suite of specialised skills they need to build meaningful and successful CV&I programs.  With these specific and thematically related new services, CVI² Charter Members have concentrated on building unique service offerings in the areas we believe will immediately improve CV&I program and team performance, and quickly supplement corporation’s core capabilities.”

CVI² includes charter members Bell Mason Group, DLA Piper, Silicon Valley Bank, Global Corporate Venturing, J Thelander Consulting, Deloitte LLP and Doblin, a unit of Deloitte.