The Concept of Business Village in Sri Lankan Universities:

What is a ‘Business Village’?

A. L. M. A. Shameem Senior Lecturer South Eastern University of Sri Lanka

What is Business Village?

Business Villages are a way of providing accommodation for smaller companies, by situating them under one roof. On the basis of sharing resources such as office room, Information Technology, parking, and reception staff, costs can be lower than for one company going it alone. Economies of scale are tangible in these environments since the cost of services is aggregated among all the businesses in the village.

Such villages provide complete business units, removing the problem of finding, setting up and operating business office accommodation. Office suits will be immediately available and ready to work at a moment’s notice. This concept is very much important to Sri Lankan Universities.

Often under the support of an academic institution, e.g. University, such a site can incubate the growth of a start-up business until it becomes a steady-going operation, and also provide an entrepreneurial environment of like-minds. SMEs are in their nascent state in a Business Village, and their potential for growth is nurtured here.

Interaction amongst businesses within a village can be mutually supportive and may lead to collaborative projects. Business villages provide their occupants with a competitive advantage.

Working conditions have a high level of standardization, e.g. similar office ‘units’.

The facilities of a local University may be available for utilization, as well as its labour pool of graduates and under-graduates.

Working conditions are designed to be excellent, attractive to businesses who would seek to situate themselves there.

As such, a business village can encourage the economic regeneration of a locality by leveraging the lower costs of shared facilities and the academic resources of a nearby academic institution. Business villages are now common-place in Europe and America.

The synergy of business and academia manifested in this way is often called a “Knowledge Hub”, essentially a region with an ensemble of knowledge intensive organisations located in both the public and private sectors. Such a hub serves the purpose of generating, applying and transmitting knowledge.

A knowledge hub hosts businesses to which there is competitive advantage in being specialized knowledge orientated activities. Furthermore, this can be allied to comparative advantage by virtue of being located in a region to which is away from premium property prices, high wages and cost of living. Thus Knowledge Hubs are particularly attractive to hitherto underdeveloped regions.

The aim of this Business Villages in Universities:

The aim of this Business Villages in Universities is to:

Strengthen the university and local business through the establishment of business village. It may involve enhancing the research and development, facilitating the transfer of knowledge, ideas, and technology to society and accelerates “time to innovation” in industries and businesses, providing local entrepreneurs access to a vibrant, friendly, and highly intellectual business place in order to achieve our national goals.

Business Village (University) can encourage a wide variety of businesses (Specially regional SMEs, Consultation and Training firms, Publishing, and Tourism etc), driven by like-minded people, who develop and work together. This will make local business more effective, and the likelihood of success, greater.

Objectives of the Business Villages in Universities

Business Villages in Universities has two important objectives.

* One, to develop University-Industry-Business Partnerships at the local and regional level in order to mutually benefit universities, industries and businesses through R&D, innovation and initiative, and development and transfer of knowledge, ideas, skills and technology to Small and Medium Enterprises with a view to Enhancing Economic growth at the local and regional levels; and

* Two, to spearhead a ‘Business Village Initiative’ in all National Universities and with a specific purpose of creating a ‘Knowledge and Innovation Initiative’ for Small and Medium Enterprises at the local and regional levels towards achieving National Goals.

Expected Outcomes

Effective use of academic staff, graduates and undergraduates, and research support mechanisms that promote collaboration will lead to the creation and efficient use of knowledge to achieve national goals. The outcomes from the proposed ‘Business Villages in Universities’ project would be new research partnerships; new knowledge and ideas; new products, processes, and industries and businesses (especially SMEs) located in the country; economic growth; new jobs; and poverty reduction. The outcomes from these efforts would be the creation of new partnerships, new knowledge and ideas, achieving national goals in key business policy areas, and the economic growth and jobs that result from new activity.

Improvements in university management of intellectual property would result in more effective dissemination of R&D results, generating economic activities, particularly SMEs, and jobs in local and important Small and Medium Enterprises.

What are the benefits?

Benefits can be mutual: University and Business unit.

(i) Benefits to the University

Some of the benefits are as follows:

* Good partnership can be established with Local Business community.

* Staff can enjoy with research and development contribution.

* Chance to develop intellectual, academic and economic capital

* Cross cultural business

* Increased employment scope at various level

* Can earn money : Such as rent

* Etc.

(ii) Benefits to the Business Units

Some of the benefits are as follows:

* Flexible terms and conditions

* Free parking facilities

* Access to business intellectual, consultation and training support from experts (University Staff)

* Ready to use office setup.

* Meeting room usage

* IT support

* Telephone and internet connection (the only additional costs payable are telephone line rental, call costs and any office incidentals)

* Etc.

Actors and Actions

- National government: Continue to fund and expand research support mechanisms that promote collaboration and innovation in universities.

- Within the context of making the R&D policies that incentivize businesses to develop partnerships with universities for research that results in new region-located economic activities.

- Businesses and universities: The relationship between business and higher education should evolve into more of a peer-to-peer nature, stressing collaboration in areas of joint interest rather than the traditional customer-supplier relationship in which business procures graduates and intellectual property from universities.

- Businesses and universities should work closely together to develop new graduate degree programmes that address strategic workforce gaps for science/social science/business management-based employers.

- National institutes, businesses, universities: Collaboration among research by the nation’s national institutes, businesses, and universities should be encouraged, since the latter’s capacity for small and medium scale, sustained research projects both supports and depends critically on both the participation of university faculty and graduate students and the marketplace.

- Universities: Improve management of R&D, innovation and intellectual property to improve and transfer knowledge, ideas, skills and technology towards developing small and medium enterprises that could support local and community economic development.

The above mentioned novel concept is timely needed in Sri Lankan universities. At present, the structural changes in Sri Lankan higher education policy do motivate the above concept to a certain extent in some platforms. Therefore, the Sri Lankan universities should make a greater thrust towards adopting this new concept in order to make our universities in line with International standards.

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