Website Analysis

Value Network Analysis (VNA) can readily be used with data from websites to reveal business models, business networks, and patterns of collaboration. Webcrawl technologies make it possible to see how websites are connected through URLs by generating social graphs from the data. Additionally value network modeling can be used to understand organizational and business network roles and interactions.

In the time period April 2009 to June 2009 a value network evaluation was performed in the region Skane of Sweden in order to explore the regional innovation system from the perspective of a group of approximately 50 companies providing supporting activities in this system, the Skane Innovation Forum. The specific aims of the evaluation were to:

• Learn more about how the intermediates in the regional innovation system (RIS) function
• Provide participants in the RIS with a whole-systems view
• Explore potential benchmarking directions
• Identify basic policies and procedures that support the RIS effectively
• Specify how collaboration technology can better support the RIS

The Value Network Strategy Model was used as a lens for structuring the evaluation. An iterative process consisting of a web crawl, a website analysis, and a web survey was completed to identify the basic value network archetype existing to support the regional innovation system and to provide insights into potential governance frameworks and support tools. The insights gained were validated twice in face-to-face systemic meetings with the participating organizations.

The Value Network Analysis of Skane is part of a self evaluation of the innovation strength of the Skane region. This ongoing effort is a political initiative, taken together with the Swedish Investment Agency, Vinnova. In a longer perspective the capability for self evaluation is seen as part of a capability for innovation governance that is to execute leadership on an innovation systemic level. Such leadership is seen as central to the development of regional innovation strength.

Web crawls

The project team identified 48 URLs of organizations of interest. The Website Analysis team converted all websites which were in English language - 16 of 48 - into value networks. These helped to define a standard list of roles and deliverables. The team trained 3 Swedish students to undertake the analysis on the remaining websites which were only available in Swedish. The results were then translated into English for further evaluation. The focus was on:

• Standardizations of roles where possible
• Different perspectives of governance, operations, and collaboration of each website
• Asset types of each deliverable according the categories of Business Relationships, Financial, Structure, and Competence

Figure 1: Results of the Skane region webcrawl of linkages among 48 key organizations.

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Value network analysis of websites

A Value Network Analysis of the websites of the 48 organizations identified approximately 1300 transactions, linking more than 40 roles and 50 deliverables.

Of special interest was the perspective of comparing governance, operations, and collaboration related sequences, since these differed consistently across the evaluation organizations and emphasized differences in emphasis of the various business models.

Figure 2 shows an example of how different - flows - or sequences work within the sample value network generated from the Ideon Science Park website content.

Figure 2: Sample value network level representation: All flows combined - Ideon.

Since each transaction was also allocated to one of the four asset types: business relationships, structure, competence, and financial - it was possible to generate a capacity formation profile for the science park (Figure 3). This shows that the primary contribution of the science park to regional development is building business relationships and human competence.

Figure 3: Capacity formation 

profile - Ideon.

An integrated value network analysis of the region

An additional web survey was completed by 31 organizations and led to an integrated value network with approximately 1300 transactions and 7 Roles and 480 deliverables. An Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) performed on the basis of the survey responses yielded approximately 600 transactions, with 53 participants. An aggregated value network was created based on all the separate analyses performed and consisted of approximately 20,000 transactions and 57 Roles.

All deliverables that were identified during the web analysis were then plotted to identify any areas of emphasis that might be occurring. The chart in Figure 4 shows the relevant results. Surprising for the research team was the clear language emphasis on "Young entrepreneurs support," raising the question of whether this actually should be the focus of the Skane Innovation Forum members.

Figure 4: Areas of emphasis for value deliverables - all organizations

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In terms of Capacity Building, an assessment of all organizations in the region shows a distribution of capacity building activities falling into the following profile, Figure 5. 

Figure 5: Capacity formation profile - all organizations

The generated networks also were evaluated using the social network analysis tools Ucinet(tm) and Pajek(tm), and the Value Networks Insights(rtm) application.

The aggregated value network was then assessed based on a maturity and supportability model and ranked against various comparable regional innovation systems (e.g. the Oulu region in Finland), commercial community-based companies (e.g. YouTube), and selected value network case studies (e.g. the Mayo Clinic). This ranking provided the Region Skane Innovation Forum with a foundation for defining its strategy moving forward.

Key insights that arose during the analysis were:

• The Skane Regional Innovation System (RIS) as a whole demonstrates healthy behavior (i.e. no significant fragmenting).
• The Skane RIS sub-structures follow the basic collaboration and innovation archetypes identified in previous studies.
• Participants in the RIS do NOT have a clear understanding of their role in the RIS, as evidenced by the large number of roles they communicate they are assuming.
• The Skane RIS is NOT connected internationally to any significant degree, as evidenced by the comparatively very low number of non-Swedish connections seen in the web crawl and the predominantly Swedish language presence on the websites.
• The websites of the organizations represented in the RIS do NOT communicate the actual business model of the participating organizations, as evidenced by feedback received by their representatives during the systemic meeting.
• Regional funding policies heavily influence the manner in which the existing innovation archetypes are structured and interact, to the degree that the local, regional, and national funding structures are mirrored.
• A transparent innovation process across organizational boundaries does NOT exist, although the RIS has self-organized to a great degree.
• A common sense of purpose or community is emergent in the RIS.

Based on the insights provided by the analysis and the validation of findings the following recommendations were made in order to support the creation of a sustainable and high performing RIS in the region of Skane:

• The RIS participants of the Skane Innovation Forum must position for bridge building across the RIS.
• It is necessary to expand and refine the analysis of RIS in order to define best practices more clearly.
• The maturity model can help the Skane Innovation Forum to identify its desired future state and develop a coherent and supportable strategy accordingly.
• The Skane Innovation Forum needs to clarify participants' roles and ensure that all necessary roles are filled appropriately.
• The re-constituted Skane Innovation Forum must map its future state value network based on understanding gleaned from previous steps.
• The Skane RIS must define performance indicators, whereby development of specific individual indicators and alignment with the indicators of the Global Innovation Survey is recommended.
• Regional funding policy must be enhanced to support the RIS value network.
• The Skane RIS must implement a single, actively moderated, collaboration platform and create a single web presence. Prototyping the Induct Software solution with Valuenetworks.com business intelligence back-end is recommended.
• The Skane RIS must continue to use systemic meetings to evolve its community.
• Participants in the Skane RIS must be coached to profile themselves more clearly in the RIS and to actively use network management tools and approaches for operational, tactical and strategic management.
• Strong players in the RIS should act as mentors to other participants to speed up the development process.
• The RIS needs to create a more open culture to invite other nationalities into their community.

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