Linking theory to practice

Linking university's research to industrial practices

Strategic roadmapping is a graphical approach for strategic planning. It uses brainstorming and workshop methodology to help top-level management to generate strategic ideas, link strategy to action, and facilitate mutual understanding among managers. It is a simple, quick and efficient tool for market, product, technology, capability, and resource planning.
There are a lot of terminologies used by different organizations and individuals for strategic roadmapping. Among the most common terms used are strategic roadmapping and technology roadmapping. Others include supply chain roadmapping, innovation roadmapping, business roadmapping, technology route mapping, etc.

TO TRAIN MANAGERS TO USE THE KNOWLEDGE

Organizations and individuals use different terms for roadmaps too. Among the most common names are strategic roadmap, business roadmap, technology roadmap, and innovation roadmap. Others include technology route map, science roadmap, program roadmap, market roadmap, industry roadmap, R&D roadmap, customer roadmap, product roadmap, service roadmap, production roadmap, enterprise roadmap, application roadmap, supply chain roadmap, process roadmap, design roadmap, engineering roadmap, policy roadmap, infrastructure roadmap, risk roadmap, and investment roadmap.

The key benefits of strategic roadmapping process include the sharing of knowledge and the development of a common vision of where the company is heading. Nevertheless, these benefits can hardly be derived through conventional roadmapping process, which is mainly facilitated by a prescript and ‘hard’ approach. It is worth noting that the process needs to be integrated with the ‘soft’ aspects of management such as human resource management issues. Among the ‘soft’ aspects are top-level managers’ involvement and support, multi-disciplinary and -management layers team building step, training, and post-process arrangement. A new process, which incorporates the ‘soft’ aspect of human resource management, is developed to make the strategic roadmapping process better.

PRACTICAL WORKSHOP

Workshops are usually organised to operationalise the strategic roadmapping process. Workshops generally resemble a brainstorming session. The main benefit that can be derived from workshops is the opportunities to generate collective creativity and mutual understanding.


The traditional approach to strategic planning is usually top-down. The resistance level of adopting the strategic roadmap is found to be relatively high among the middle and first level management. Such resistance will delay or prevent the effective implementation of the developed strategies. Approach to strategic planning should be bottom-up. The workshops enable the strategy development to be a bottom-up process. Apart from that, workshops encourage breakthrough and build ownership and accountability among participants. Nonetheless, strong collective wisdom and experiences from the participants are needed to run the workshops successfully. If the workshop is effectively organized, strategy will turn into action, and better business performance will follow.

In general, workshop can be organized into two different levels, namely macro and micro level.

The process helps managers to generate roadmap for them to monitor and manage their technological development as well as strategic planning for technology. Roadmap is a graphical representation that provides a top-level strategic view of the company. In this research, the process of Technology Roadmapping was tested in a company. Field work using action research has been adopted to carry out the research. Managers of firms have been directly involved so that the application of Technology Roadmapping could be tested in a practical setting. Many useful insights and comments about implementation of the process were identified from the participating managers.

METHODOLOGY: STRATEGIC ROADMAPPING WORKSHOP

The research is set up to test a proposed managerial process, Technology Roadmap Management (TRM-II) in the real-life industry environment using. As the nature of the real-life setting of the research whereby the environment cannot be detached from the research, action research is a suitable method for the research.Action research allows the researcher to investigate the effects of applying solutions to a company and whatever theories developed from the researcher are validated through practical application. Action research is especially important in situations where industrial participation is necessary. Action research has become increasingly popular around the world as a form of research methodology and professional learning. It has been particularly well developed in education, specifically in teaching, and is now used widely across the professions such as in business.

After the selection of action research as the methodology, the subsequent workshops were scheduled for the application of a proposed technology roadmapping technique, which has five stages. These are:

Stage 1: Top-level management involvement and support;
Stage 2: Pre-process formal educational and training programs;
Stage 3: Team building workshops;
Stage 4: Technology roadmap process using T-plan;
Stage 5: Post-process continuous improvement.

The workshop using action research approach is educative, it encourages learning both at an individual and group level. By iterative modeling and group discussion, managers learn, modifying their understanding, ideas, beliefs and even their thought processes over time. The technology roadmap developed provides a way of capturing and recording the strategies of an organization in a 1-page diagram. All participants can visualize their parts and how their parts are related to other parts, as well as the overall strategies of the firm.

Unlike experiments that are carried out in laboratories in which the variables are strictly controlled, the research assumes that events cannot be detached from human influence. Thus, a natural experiment is designed because the environment under studied cannot be detached from the reality. Natural experiment conducted in this real life environment is scientific and useful. Researchers who work in this tradition tend to focus on meaning and holistic viewpoints, use qualitative approach, and emphasize theory development.

Action research used in this study is taking a different epistemological stance. It is adopting a prescriptive approach. It concerns with application knowledge and addresses the question of ‘how to’ implement new systems or solve practical problems. The aim of this methodology is to create knowledge within an applied science regime rather than traditional science or social science paradigms. Research of this type sets out to develop and test tool, and then to operationalise the frameworks or theories, and finally provide managers with practical approaches to improving their work or operations. Testing the tool in this sense does not have the same type of rigour as testing in the true scientific sense. This is mainly because there is no control over extraneous such as in an experiment.


Strategic roadmapping workshop at MIM

Macro level workshop aims to generate national or industry level strategic roadmap. It can also be used to generate supply-chain level or corporate level roadmaps.

Macro level focuses more on the application of strategic roadmapping at the high-level of national, industry or corporate world. It encompasses a broader scope of management than its micro counterpart. It aims to explore and identify key national/industry/corporate issues. It is usually being used to develop national policy, industry directions, corporate or SBU strategies. It can accommodate up to 30 participants, originating from different background such as government, corporate, experts, or academics. The macro level strategic roadmapping workshop usually uses a three layers architecture, which consists of business/market, product/services, and capability/resource.

Micro level workshop aims to generate firm level strategic roadmap. It is also suitable for developing departmental or product level or even technology level roadmaps.

Micro level workshop is applied at the product or technology level of an individual firm. It is usually designed for a single product or technology. It usually accommodates between 5 and 15 participants, with representatives originating from different departments such as marketing, R&D, human resource, finance, production, and engineering. The duration of the workshop normally takes four working days. Micro level strategic roadmapping workshop usually uses the four-layer architecture, which comprises of market, product, technology/capability, and other resources.

According to action researcher, the tool is not independent of the test, and the test is not repeatable. However, in the realm of action research methodology, industrial managers more concern about practical results and are more interested in development and improvement than in the more experimental trial testing required by the principles of natural science. Thus the testing becomes as much a refining and developing activity as a verification activity. This clearly illustrates the gap which still exists between action researcher and the rigorous positivist paradigm. The scientist will clearly feel uncomfortable with action research approach. However, because the methodology was developed to meet the requirements of managers and as such is much more akin to the paradigm of the natural sciences (i.e. hypothesise and test), than to the more descriptive work typical of many of the social sciences.

MIM CPD Talk

Strategic roadmapping: research, practice and future development

Overview
Strategic Roadmapping is an outstanding strategic planning tool for company top-level management team that guides company to co-ordinate strategy, market, product, and resource. It has incorporated the core concepts of strategic charting, visualization, technology road-mapping and resource-based view into practice. Strategic roadmapping brings together various strategic perspectives that are crucial for delivering sustainable value to business. Strategic roadmaps form a key part of strategy documents by displaying key goals, resources and actions, and supporting coordination and mutual understanding. The technique is flexible, and can be adapted to suit the particular needs from individual firm to industry. Its application is wide from MNC to government agencies such as ABB, Caterpillar, Crown, Microsoft, Royal Mail, UK Ministry of Defence and Department of Transport (Rail Industry Strategy), and Kazakhstan Government. The purpose of this talk is to provide both practitioners and academics with an introduction to the concept and practice of strategic roadmapping.



Content / Objective
1.Introduction to theory and core concept of strategic roadmapping
2.Current research in strategic roadmapping
3.Practices, examples and benefits of strategic roadmapping
4.Future development and research opportunities in strategic roadmapping

Administrative Details

Time:10.00am-11.30am
Date:31 March 2012
Venue:Malaysian Institute of Management
Management House
227 Jalan Ampang
50450 Kuala Lumpur

Fees:MIM Members (Free)
Non-Members (RM50.00)


Facilitator

Dr. Yee received his BMechEng from UTM, Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from University of Wales, MBA from Heriot-Watt University, and PhD from Cambridge University. He has 17 years of experiences in industry, research, and consultation. He spent 7 years in heavy equipment industry, 4 years trained at Cambridge University in strategic management, roadmapping, performance measurement, and 6 years in research and consultation. He involved in many industrial workshops at Cambridge. He specializes in the development of management tools for companies.

New Book 2012

My new book will be ready in 2012

Developing a new SWOT roadmapping technique

Integrating SWOT and roadmapping into practice

Yee Choy Leong

(e-mail: yee@econ.upm.edu.my)

Graduate School of Management, Universiti Putra Malaysia (Yee, C.L.)

Kenny Teoh Guan Cheng

(e-mail: kent@econ.upm.edu.my)

Department of Management and Marketing, Faculty of Economics and Management, Universiti Putra Malaysia (Teoh, K.G.C.)

Winnie Liaw Wei Yu

Graduate School of Management, Universiti Putra Malaysia (Liaw, W.W.Y.)

ABSTRACT

This research aims to develop a SWOT-roadmappig technique that help managers to identify changes in new business environment, generate strategies for effective solutions, and configure resources and capabilities for implementing the strategies. The prototype technique was built based on the integration of two strategic planning tools: SWOT and roadmapping. In order to operationalize the technique, it was tested in two laboratory experiments and five companies. The findings indicate that the technique has high feasibility, usability, and utility. The paper ends with providing practical guidelines for implementing the technique in future.

Keyword: SWOT, roadmapping, strategic planning

INTRODUCTION

The new business environment, driven by technological advancement, globalization and social changes, creates a series of new challenges for today’s companies (Pirson and Lawrence, 2010; Reeves and Deimler, 2011; Whipp 1991). Many market leaders in those days were no longer exist today as they were overthrown by others who have higher adaptability capability to a changing business environment (Reeves and Deimler, 2011). The new environment is especially true for companies operated in the fast-growing emerging countries, whereby, the environment is complicated by the challenge of local culture and business practices (Burman, 2011). Adopting these challenges requires new thinking to traditional approaches in strategic planning (Reeves and Deimler, 2011).

According to Reeves and Deimler (2011), the traditional approaches to strategic planning that always assume a relatively stable and predictable world are no longer feasible. New business environment requires the ability to detect external changes, conduct experiments quickly for developing effective countermeasures, and manage complex organizational resources and systems for adopting themselves to the changes.

Thus, in order to successfully detect new changes at the earliest stage possible, managers today would like to consider what changes can be expected? What opportunities and threats will these changes cause? What occurring is most desirable by the firm? What future strategies are the most appropriate to counter these changes? And what future resources and capabilities (i.e. strength) are necessary to be acquired first? These questions are not only relevant to managers from Multinational companies, but also of great concern to managers from smaller firms, usually more vulnerable ones, that are operating in emerging economies.

Thus, there is a need for a tool to allow managers to address the above questions. Starting from this consideration, this research would like to address the gap by proposing a practical tool to assist managers in identifying and analyzing changes in new business environment, generating strategies for effective solutions, and configuring resources and capabilities for implementing the strategies. In the following sections, this paper highlights the limitations of two strategic planning tools: roadmapping and SWOT, describes the development of a new prototype technique: SWOT-roadmapping that integrate the two strategic planning tools above. The architecture and process of the new prototype technique is illustrated. The prototype technique was then tested to two laboratory experiments and five companies. The results of the tests are presented and discussed. The paper concludes by providing guidelines and practical tips for implementing the new technique in future.

Top Management care about technology?

Technology Roadmapping for Top Management

Yee Choy Leong † 1and Kenny Teoh Guan Cheng2
Graduate School of Management1, Faculty of Economics and Management2
Universiti Putra Malaysia 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
Email: yee@econ.upm.edu.my1
kent@econ.upm.edu.my2

(Yee, C.L. and Teoh, K.G.C., 2010, Technology Roadmapping for Top Management, The 11th Asia Pacific Industrial Engineering and Management Systems Conference, 7-10 December 2010, Melaka, Malaysia. Paper ID:535, pp. 262.)

Abstract - The issue of effective technology management is becoming strategically important and critical in delivering competitive advantage to companies today. The pace and complexity of technological innovation is increasing rapidly; hence, top-level managers require quick, flexible, and enabling bird’s-eye view methods such as Technology Roadmapping, which can support the development and implementation of integrated strategic business, product and technology plans. Consequently, there is a growing need for Technology Roadmapping by many firms today. Technology Roadmapping is a 1-page graphical representation that provides a high-level strategic view of a company’s plans and actions. This paper presents an application of Technology Roadmapping in a business firm. Field work using action research has been adopted to carry out the research. Managers of firms have been directly involved so that the application of Technology Roadmapping could be tested in a practical setting. Many issues and challenges of applying Technology Roadmapping have been identified and discussed. The findings from this applied research are of interest to many managers as well as academics.
Keywords: technology roadmapping; strategic planning; top management; action research.

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.

TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT
-Technology Roadmapping

Technology can be considered as a specific type of knowledge that may appear in explicit or tacit form (Gaynor, 1996; Phaal et al., 2004). Explicit technological knowledge can normally be codified in terms of texts, drawings, or formulas; embodied within a physical artefact, such as a machine, equipment, or product which always associated with hard sciences or engineering (‘Hard’ technology). Tacit technological knowledge cannot be easily articulated, and normally appear in the forms of experiences and skills. It is normally associated with the ‘soft’ aspect of technology such as innovation processes, organisational learning processes, and new product development and introduction processes (Phaal et al., 2004).

The management of technology is becoming increasingly important in today global competitive environment (Gaynor, 1996). According to the European Institute of Technology and Innovation Management, technology management addresses the effective identification, selection, acquisition, development, exploitation and protection of technologies (product, process and infrastructural) needed to achieve, maintain [and grow] a market position and business performance in accordance with the company’s objectives (EITM).

This definition highlights the importance of establishing linkages between commercial and technological functions in order to achieve the business objectives. This requires effective knowledge management and supported by appropriate management tools or processes (Gaynor, 1996). However, there is lack of effective processes to technology management. Consequently many technological investment projects, such as on robotics, computer integrated manufacturing, and flexible manufacturing systems had failed (Gregory, 1995). The failure is not due to the technologies itself, but because the links between technology and strategy to satisfy the business needs were not well understood (Gregory, 1995).

As a result, companies today are aware of the importance of technology strategy and concern about how to deploy and manage technology to support the goals of the business. Clearly, there is a need to understand the potential of existing and new technologies, integrate and exploit them to provide new capabilities, products and process in the context of business and corporate strategy (Roussel et al., 1991). Furthermore in a fast changing technological age, the frequent interaction between users, manufacturers and scientists to provide innovative capabilities is getting important.

Periodical technological review may be changing from annual to day-to-day basis. Companies’ managers need to build-in the technology management process into their daily operating system and routine in order to ensure critical changes are closely monitored. In order to do that, there is an increasing industrial focus on management tools or methods that can satisfy the above needs (Phaal et al., 2004).

An important aspect of such a method is that it encourages collective discussion among managers from different functional departments such as commercial and technology, and linkages between technology resources and company objectives. A technology roadmap process is an example of such a method that can be used for exploring and communicating the linkages between technological resources, company products, and business requirement.

Living in UK

Cam River

Managing an organisation

new blog for Dr Yee. comment welcome