Professor Jay Bal
| WMG Accelerator
Hi, I’m Jay Bal, Professor in the WMG department, and Course Leader for the MSc in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the MReS in Business Transformation. With research interests in virtual business ecosystems, creating value through the internet, electronic markets, Industry 4.0, ontology generation, SMEs, and innovation methods. Previous work experience as a telecoms designer, factory manager and senior scientist designing integrated circuit design systems. Originally joined the University as team lead for putting more advanced electronic systems in JLR cars. Created and taught courses around the World. I developed the MSc in Innovation and Entrepreneurship just over ten years ago.
Since then, the team and I have taken hundreds of students through their journey of establishing their own businesses, and helped others understand how to transform the businesses in which they already work. The course teaches students how to apply best practice approaches to designing, developing and running an innovation-driven, often globally orientated business. It’s a practical course, covering the process from, generating new business ideas, all the way through to launching and running the business, and there is plenty of focus on how innovation can be exploited in technological and business contexts, to increase success for new product or service businesses.
My specialist interests lie in innovative thinking, process analysis and design, organisational strategy, e-procurement and web based systems. I have consulted for several governments, the World Bank, and the Commonwealth Secretariat on improving trade using e-commerce to promote SMEs, and, as the founder of the West Midlands Collaborative Commerce Marketplace, I initiated a platform, which has enabled over 14,000 SME users to win contracts worth over £8bn.