The CTO and/or CIO have vested interests in their future technical vision of the company. That’s what they are paid to do – to think ahead and make things happen. (Note: A SR&ED program may appear to be an unwelcome distraction, until it becomes clear that SR&ED is a strategy for mitigating technical risk and the costs of innovation.) No other single individual has as clear a view of the technology gaps and challenges that need to be overcome in the pursuit of a technical vision, so the CTO/CIO are vital allies (and critical sponsors) for the success of SR&ED. Also vitally important are the key technical primes who variously direct or manage the detailed execution of the technical vision -- to identify, train, (or even hire), one or more SR&ED Champions within the ranks of such individuals is to enforce both leadership and policy traction at a level where it can become immediately useful.
Leadership support from within the Program and/or Project Management Office is also vitally important, and the same is true of the official “process owners” for technical, product and service development processes -- all of these areas are often required to enforce some degree of change to support SR&ED, depending on the extent to which current processes actually generate useful technical and costing evidence. These are stakeholders whose support and engagement are essential for driving effective process change.
Finally, and not at all least, key financial and taxation leaders need to be willing to help you make the case that SR&ED is fundamentally worth building into the financial and taxation processes. Creating process-level support for such change is a lot of work, and they need to agree that it’s going to be “worth it” when done properly.
In all of the above areas, the opportunity exists to develop your SR&ED Champions internally, over time, by building on a foundation of successful claims and trying to persuade and “win” support from your internal SR&ED stakeholders. Internal training and awareness programs can help, as does a wide-ranging program of communication and long-term advocacy with those same key stakeholders.
Developing a SR&ED Champion requires that you have effectively listened to these critical stakeholders, that you have understood and addressed their concerns where possible and that you have enlisted their active participation and constructive “sponsorship” within the confines of their own reporting structures. It should also, ultimately, entail a transfer of the glory and the “ownership” of the program results to those same SR&ED Champions. Give them a “skin in the game”, and eventually, it’ll be their game: mission accomplished.
Bruce Madole