Hugo Tschirky

Technology marketing: a firm's core competence?

For the last three decades, global competition has dramatically changed. Formerly dominating firms from the Triad are facing competition from nearly all over the world. Due to an unprecedented exponential growth of global knowledge production and consumption, no longer do firms rely on go-it-alone strategies. Rather, firms have become proficient in sourcing technologies that are either state of the art or non-available inside their boundaries or they have intensified their activities regarding the external commercialisation of knowledge (mainly technological knowledge). This paper discusses the major drivers and challenges regarding the processes of knowledge acquisition and knowledge exploitation. And it introduces some of the instruments firms will have to master to compete in the global economy of the 21st century.

How to transfer discontinuous technology into radical innovation – some evidence from three nanotech cases

In this paper the focus is on the strategy formulation processes, specifically supportive methods and structures, which address various managerial issues concerning discontinuous technologies and radical innovation in the early phase of strategic decision-making. In three in-depth case studies how companies proceeded with discontinuous technology and radical innovation ideas in strategy formulation was investigated ex-post. Based on literature and the analysis from the cases nine propositions are suggested for the design of an idealized strategy formulation process model for the simultaneous and differentiated strategic management of radical innovation and incremental innovation. The propositions are transformed into a visualized process model showing the interaction and arrangement of the latter.

Sustained Innovation Management

Insight gained in the previous two chapters, on state-of-the-art literature and state-of-the-art practice, delivered an answer to the question asking for requirements that determine successful strategic planning and implementation of sustained technological innovation management in innovation-driven enterprises. As already described in Chapter 1, sustained technological innovation management aims to simultaneously manage both incremental and radical innovations. The requirements for such management have been formulated in the form of nine propositions describing the design of processes, methods and structures of a sustained innovation management concept.

Integrated framework for a holistic approach to technology management

The growing implications of technological change on society and the dependencies of private and public interests call for a holistic approach to technology management. A framework is developed based on a systems approach, which helps analyse and contrast technology management on a company and national level. By changing the level of observation, new forms of technology management from the point of view of society as a whole may be discussed.

Understanding Discontinuous Technology and Radical Innovation

There is a great variety of terms used to describe the phenomenon of technological discontinuity and radical innovation (Green et al., 1995: 203; Garcia and Roger, 2002: 110). Both terms are often used synonymously without any differentiation (Lehmann, 1994: 10). Besides the term radical innovation (North and Tucker, 1987: 11; Damanpour, 1988: 546; Leifer, 2000: 4; O’Connor and Veryzer, 2001: 233), and breakthrough innovation (Nayak and Ketteringham, 1986: 181; Mascitelli, 2000), authors speak of breakpoint (Strebel, 1995: 11) or revolutionary innovation (Abernathy and Clark, 1991: 61). Since a few years Christensen (1997; 2003) introduced the term disruptive technology in the context related to radical innovation changes. The present article will focus on the most popular terms used in literature – which are discontinuous technology, radical innovation, and disruptive technology – in order to differentiate them and to show how they are related. Doing so, it will also shed light on how the research community commonly understands the phenomenon described by these terms.

Developing Innovation Strategies: How to Start? — A Systemic Approach Using the Innovation Architecture

Coping with the ever stunning development of technological change and mastering a competitive innovation quality have become primordial challenges for most companies. However, keeping abreast with the omnipresent reality of technological achievements and threats requires managerial competencies which differ in many respects from traditional management of the past. In the first place technology and innovation are no longer issues of specific individuals or departments but rather of concern for the entire enterprise. Whereas in the past, Research and Development (R&D) departments often were considered to be responsible for an appropriate stream flow of innovative products, today’s “best-in-class” examples of innovative companies reveal an innovation consciousness which is shared by all primary entrepreneurial disciplines such as R&D, production, marketing, and finance.

Managing Radical Innovation — Corporate Case Studies

Today it is no longer sufficient for companies to merely concentrate on continuous improvement of existing technologies by following proven incremental innovation patterns (see Chapter 1). Henceforth, it is more and more necessary for companies to also master discontinuous technological evolution and radical innovation in addition to the more common incremental innovation. Thus, this book provides answers to understanding the processes, structures and methods required for the successful management of both radical and incremental innovation and how these processes, structures and methods can be implemented.

Outlook and Management Summary

This research studied how innovation-driven companies can strategically plan to successfully cope with discontinuous technologies and radical innovation while simultaneously fostering incremental innovation. This approach, which pays attention to both radical and incremental innovations in strategic planning, is called sustained innovation management. The corresponding question of the publication was: ‘How processes, structures and methods of strategic planning with discontinuous technologies and radical innovation should be designed, directed and developed in order to achieve the implementation of sustained technological innovation.’ The analysis in theory and in practice of state-of-the-art management in strategic technology management, as well as in strategic innovation management, revealed the absence of a satisfactory answer to this question. This absence represented the twofold gap in theory and in practice.

State of the Art in Management Theory

This chapter first builds the theoretical basis of this publication, then gaps in state-of-the-art management theory will be elaborated in detail. In the first section some definitions and basic concepts are given. The second section reviews in detail the research done in the field of discontinuous technologies and radical innovation. The third section shows how this insight is used today for the purpose of strategic planning of discontinuous technologies and radical innovation. The chapter will close with a conclusion of this analysis formulating the gap in state of the art in theory.

Technology Marketing: A New Core Competence of Technology-Based Enterprises

Even in the area of technology, firms are increasingly contracting in from external sources, or contracting out their own work to third parties. This involves the areas of licensing, R&D cooperation, production and OEM briefs and commerce in technologically demanding components and part-products. The activities, which we call, ‘Technology Marketing’, depend on new processes and concepts. Why? Because known marketing methods do not sufficiently address the unique knowledge-defined nature of technologies. This chapter seeks to answer the questions: What new tasks does technology marketing embody, how should technology marketing be organized and to what extent is top management involved in technology marketing tasks?