Published on: Monday, 27 October 2014

V‐LINC is a new software application and methodology which helps firms optimise how they do business with their suppliers, customers, talent providers, R&I partners, peer organisations and key cluster stakeholders. Developed in the School of Business, CIT, the system maps, visualises and analyses key relationship data collected from clustered firms to inform strategy and policy development for the organisations involved as well as catering for regional and national analysis. Dr John Hobbs and Eoin Byrne have driven the development of V-LINC in CIT.

According to Dr Hobbs, “V-LINC provides business and entire clusters with the opportunity to optimise how they work together – in an era where global visibility to value chain networks is essential. V-LINC provides insights which can lead to significant business gains.”

Locally V-LINC is being implemented to map the cluster ecosystems in Biopharma, ICT and Agri-food sectors in conjunction with it@cork European Tech Cluster, IMERC and the West Cork Development Partnership, with the support of Cork County Council.

Following on from the development of V-LINC, Dr John Hobbs and Eoin Byrne (Department of Management and Enterprise, CIT) and Tamara Hoegler (CyberForum), partners on the European commissions’ project ‘BeWiser’, were invited by the ClusteriX consortium to join the International Cluster Conference Cross-Linking Clusters for Innovation which took place on Wednesday, 22nd October 2014 in Vienna.
The conference focused on cross-sectoral collaboration of clusters, a topic which has become a clear trend in recent years and provided an opportunity to share inspiration from different cluster concepts in other regional contexts and learn about EU interregional cooperation and perspectives.

Speaking at the conference Dr Hobbs believes “ClusteriX represented an ideal opportunity to network with European cluster experts and share the work we have developed in CIT. V-LINC is being used to analyse seven different European ICT cluster ecosystems as part of the ‘BeWiser’ project. The interest from companies, organisations and policy makers from across Europe as they seek to add value to their business operations and enhance their competitiveness has been staggering.”

Ms Hoegler, Head of Innovations and International Affairs at CyberForum an ICT cluster in Karlsruhe, Germany which represents over 1,000 firms suggests “many of CyberForum’s SMEs are constantly searching for new markets, new value chains for their products, as such we are seeing innovative industries emerging on the borders of traditional industries. Meeting the requirements of the market is more and more requiring a cross-disciplinary approach, software like V-LINC can aid CyberForum’s internationalisation efforts on their behalf.”

According to Eoin Byrne, CIT is “open for business” for any organisation or group that wishes to analyse and optimise the value chains that define how they do operate.

For further information on V-LINC and the BeWiser project, please contact:

BeWiser participants Tamara Hoegler (CyberForum); Dr John Hobbs and Eoin Byrne (Cork Institute of Technology) engage with Cluster Experts across Europe at the ClusteriX conference in Vienna.