TRM and CEO

Using Technology Roadmapping for strategic planning

Yee Choy Leong1 and Kenny Teoh Guan Cheng2
1Graduate School of Management
2Department of Management and Marketing, Faculty of Economics and Management
Universiti Putra Malaysia 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
Tel: 03-89467731, Fax: 03-89486188, e-mail: yee@econ.upm.edu.my




Abstract

The issue of effective technology management is becoming increasingly important and critical in delivering competitive advantage to companies today. As the pace and complexity of technological innovation has increased, the top-level managers requires rapid, flexible, and ‘1-page’ bird-eye view methods such as Technology Roadmapping (TRM), which can support the development and implementation of integrated strategic business, product and technology plans. TRM is a 1-page graphical representation that provides high-level strategic view of the company’s plans and actions. As a result, there is a growing use of TRM by many firms. This paper reports an application of TRM in a manufacturing firm. A field work using action research-based methodology is adopted to carry out the research. Managers of firms were directly involved in order to test the application of TRM in a practical setting. Many issues and challenges of applying TRM were identified and discussed. The findings from this applied research are of interest of many managers as well as academics.

Keywords: technology roadmapping; strategic planning; action research

Overview of Technology Roadmapping

Overview
"Technological assets can represent a major source of competitive advantage and growth for companies. However, integrating technological considerations into business processes effectively is a complex task, requiring consideration of multiple functions (technical, marketing, human resources and finance). Technology, combined with highly motivated and properly trained people, enables a business to respond rapidly to changing customer demands and to access and develop new market opportunities. The challenges associated with the management of technology are compounded by a number of factors, including the increasing cost, complexity and pace of technology advancement, the diversity of technology sources, the globalisation of competition and alliances, and the impact of standards and information technology. These challenges present a great opportunity for organisations that can fully harness their technological potential." (Rob Phaal, 2000)

Rob Phaal, (2000) "Technology Management" Cambridge Centre for Technology Management. University of Cambridge.

University-Industrial Networking

The centre’s networking

The centre will maintain close contact with the local academic community and industry, and establish and maintain extensive international networks, which engage industrialists, academics and policy makers. It draws together a range of expertise in areas of strategy, operations, technology, and policy. The centre will support new ideas, and promote new ways of doing thing through local, national and international networking.

Local networking: maintain a strong link with other faculties or research centres within UPM such as the engineering faculty and advanced technology research centre. Work with local governmental agencies and companies from regional industrial areas.

National networking: maintain a strong link with other research centres, institutions, and universities in the country. Maintain a link with the policy maker and non-governmental organisation. Interest, support and challenge from industry will always be a fundamental part of the centre’s national networking policy. Working with these professional bodies requires a professional mindset, confident, and competence back by our research capability.

International networking: maintain a strong link with international academic communities from UK, USA, China, South East Asian countries, etc. Interact with multinational companies that have their operations in Malaysia. The centre prepares to work with many parts of the world and maintains the strong international presence. This will consists of a constant dialogue with researchers around the world.

Industrialists and companies who work closely with the centre will benefit through enlarging their networking capability, interacting with academic and research communities from local and overseas, keeping track with the latest development in new management technology, knowing the latest development in management research, enhancing knowledge in manufacturing and service management, through a range of activities organised by the centre.

Scientific Research

Doing Practical and Conceptual Research

Practical research

The field of Management is undergoing a fundamental change from focusing on operational level to strategy level of the manufacturing and service activities. The recognition of effective management of a company’s businesses from the strategy perspective has led to a greatly increased interest, both academic and managerial, in concepts from theory, which might be applied in practice. The centre’s main research activities are conducted in collaboration with the industrial partners with the intention of providing practical solutions.


Conceptual research
The centre aims to develop an appropriate debate and to assist managers in meeting the challenges in today’s global environment. Thus, we believe it is necessary to conduct research that is not immediately linked to commercial practicality: theory building. Such research is typically conducted in collaboration with industrial partners. Sometimes, such research must be done without the constraints of immediate practicality. In addition, the centre will also focus on the most recent research trend and especially in rapidly developing areas such as technological innovations and supply networks. Such research will focus on contemporary management issues and to ensure that radical concepts are tested in the field with the industrialists and then debated in conferences with the academic communities.

To bridge the gap between researchers and managers

Linking research to practice

To increase industrial relevance of research

The Management Tool R&D centre takes a distinctive approach to link research to real industrial practice by carrying out practical research to enhance the value-adding capability of manufacturing and service companies, including:

· Creating tools and techniques to improve the operational performance of manufacturing and service businesses
· Pursuing the application of latest technology in support of the management and development of innovative new products and services
· Growing the body of knowledge in management to facilitate the shift from labour-intensive economy to knowledge- or capital-intensive economy
· Developing and promoting a coherent view of manufacturing and service business from both the strategic and operation perspectives
· Maintaining a high level of industrial involvement, leading to practical outputs for companies
· Producing managers (at undergraduates, postgraduates, and post-experience levels) that are outstanding, down-to-earth, and practically oriented people.


Human, Equipment, and Environmental Interface

Researchers are someone who is “concerned with the design, installation, and improvement of integrated systems of people, machine, and workplace by drawing upon specialised knowledge and skills in the mathematical, physical, and social sciences, together with the principles and methods of management to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from such systems”.

Focus on a real world perspective rather than on an academic disciplinary perspective.

In the centre, we conduct both theoretical and applied research. However, we focus on building theory from practice. The academic boundary distinctions among multiple disciplines will gradually disappear and migrate to a setting that is defined by business processes rather than discipline. What is important to us is our impact on business results rather than on particular disciplines. The diverse disciplinary theories, concepts, and knowledge becomes valuable when it is applied and we see its instrumentality for achieving positive business results.

Industrial-University Collaboration

Working Towards World Class University

Industrial-University Collaboration

Working with the R&D centre, companies will benefit from a range of activities. The centre prepares to deliver its research outputs in accessible, useable formats so that industrial companies can gain practical benefits. The research outputs will be disseminated through publications, workbooks, software and consultation manual. In order to deliver support to a wide range of businesses in manufacturing and service, the centre’s research activities are based on the following general areas:
· Strategy
· Operations
· Quality
· Performance measurement
· Technology management
· Business processes
· Supply chain and International supply networks
· Management Tools and Techniques
· Decision Making Tools and Techniques

The Management Tool R&D centre prepares to work closely with companies to identify areas for improvement. The centre will work through the use of a quick ‘diagnostic’ method to identify key problems and opportunities. The centre’s team have substantial industrial experience and will draw in expertise from external sources if necessary depending on the companies’ needs. Some of the activities are in the following areas:
· Improving quality
· Reengieeering business processes
· Measuring performance
· Formulating and implementing effective strategies
· Managing change and organisational development
· Improving operating efficiency

To Build a Management Tool R&D Centre

The mission of a Management Tool R&D Centre
(To build, To build, To build)
The mission of the a research centre is to increase the competitiveness of manufacturing and service industry by enhancing their management capability in producing value-added products and services in today’s global market. In order to satisfy the above mission, the centre aims to contribute to the development of manufacturing and service industry by:
· Conducting leading edge research to support and enable manufacturing and service industry in the process of modernising and improving management knowledge
· Enhancing the knowledge in quality and operations management from a practical point of view through collaborative research with the industry
· Promoting high value-added manufacturing and service management activities to facilitate a shift from labour-intensive to automation through efficient utilisation of knowledge
· Increasing the number of able people in manufacturing and service through innovative industry-based programmesCreating tools and techniques to improve the operational performance of manufacturing and service businesses

Building World Class Research Centre

Research Centre - Building Block towards World Class University

The Center of Excellence for Research is an advanced management research center providing latest management knowledge for the manufacturing and service industry in local, regional and global contexts. The centre is part of Universiti Putra Malaysia; linking a team of multidisciplinary researchers from the Faculty of Economics and Management, Graduate School of Management, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Computer Science, etc. The center has a wealth of expertise and experience in manufacturing and service management. It is unique in a sense that it particularly emphasise an integrated view of different functions of a business; linking strategic planning, design and engineering, manufacturing, human resource, distribution, marketing, and service; in both strategy and operational level of an organisation. It aims to be a leading academic research centre in its field, in a global context. It is specially formed to support industrial companies by providing a focus for both conceptual and practical research, a forum for industry-academic discussion, a professional interface with industry and a range of industrially related programmes and services such as workshops, training and consultations. It delivers a wide range of industry-based programme to enhance the performance of manufacturing and service businesses.

Your future is Technology

Title: The success and failure of Technology Roadmapping initiatives: perceptions of participating managers.



Purpose:
The issue of effective technology management is becoming increasingly important and critical in delivering competitive advantage to companies today. The effective management of technology requires appropriate methods or systems such as Technology Roadmapping (TRM), which can support the development and implementation of integrated strategic business, product and technology plans. As a result, there is a growing use of TRM by many firms in Malaysian. However, not all TRM initiatives result in technology roadmaps being adopted and used to manage the technology. This research aims to investigate the success and failure of TRM initiatives and it has the following objectives: (1) to explore differences between companies that implement TRM and those that did not, (2) to investigate main drivers and perceived factors that block implementation, (3) to identify implementation problems of the detail process of TRM, and (4) to test the application of a refined TRM in a practical setting.


Design/methodology/approach:
The research was conducted in three main stages. Initial pilot case studies were conducted to explore differences between companies that implement TRM and those that did not as well as to investigate main drivers and perceived factors that block implementation. Then, an in-depth case study was conducted to identify implementation problems of the detail process of TRM in a firm that has successfully used TRM for a relatively long period of time in its technology planning process. Finally, a field test using action research was carried out in a company with their managers’ direct involvement in order to test the application of a refined TRM in a practical setting.

Findings:
Many issues and challenges of applying technology roadmapping were identified and discussed and a gap is identified within the existing TRM process.

One of the major findings of implementation problems is that many companies had stopped using the process after having tried it for just once and the reasons are related to the process itself (it is difficult to fit the process into the current strategic planning system for technology). In addition, it is difficult to keep the record up-to-date on an ongoing basis due to time consuming and perceived unimportant of the process. It is difficult to understand the terms used and follow the process, and rely heavily on outside expert to guide the whole implementation process. Managers have no previous experiences, lack of confident, lack of skills and knowledge, etc. A knowledge gap exist which caused many misinterpretation and confusion. A detail report is produced from this research about all grievances, comments and perceptions from managers.

The full value of TRM process can only be realized if it is used continuously and the information is kept current. This requires a feature that can build-in the process into the organization’s daily operating system. A careful consideration to add this feature is important to ensure the process could integrate with other parts of the organization, compliment with other systems, and work well under a specific environmental context, e.g. culture, in order for it to be used on an ongoing basis. In this sense, it was believed that the ‘soft’ aspect management is especially important but was neglected by the existing TRM process. This is because the existing TRM process is facilitated by a ‘prescript’ and ‘hard’ approach. The process needs to be integrated with the ‘soft’ aspects of management. A new method is proposed and it has incorporated ‘soft’ aspect of management in order to make it a better approach.

Relevance/contribution:

The findings from this research are of interest of many TRM initiatives. This research is relevant because the findings provide useful guidelines for managers to implement TRM in future. The implications of the findings to both theory and practice are discussed in this paper.

Many issues and limitations were raised in this paper about the implementation problems with the existing and proposed TRM. The proposed method may not be able to solve all of the problems however a few managers believe that it could reduce obstacles, commit resources, and reward improvement. These are the necessary steps to fully realize the benefits of the method and bring the method forward. In the academic community, such a method could invite debate from many contrasting views. For industrialists, only benefits over its cost can justify such a method. Therefore, further research is needed to test the wider applicability of the proposed method.