Paul Trott

Outsourcing, information leakage and the risk of losing technology based competencies

Purpose – To draw attention to a particular outsourcing risk that has not yet been adequately addressed in the literature, namely information leakage arising from acts of accidental disclosure or even purposeful betrayal by consultants that work for several client firms at the same time.Design/methodology/approach – A review of the literature.Findings – It illustrates how specialist IT service providers are playing pivotal roles in determining the extent to which unique firm specific skills and core competencies are being transferred to the wider industry context (via leakage) and becoming standard practices. It is shown that consultants face a dilemma as they are expected to spread cutting edge level expertise to their respective client firms, yet at the same time honour confidentiality commitments.Research limitations/implications – Conceptual rather than empirical.Practical implications – A management tool is developed for managers to aid decision making.Originality/value – A critique of the outsourcin...

Counterfeit, imitation, reverse engineering and learning: reflections from Chinese manufacturing firms

In a previous paper, we developed an alternative perspective on product imitation and innovation. In this paper, we explore some of our research questions using empirical data gathered in China. While we do not condone counterfeit activities, we explore the role of counterfeiting, imitation and learning from the perspective of Chinese manufacturers and provide insight from a small number of key informants about the motives and incentives for non-consensual acquisition of technology and their views on what Western firms should be doing to counteract the threat to their technological advantage. In this paper, we argue that where companies use the technology property of others to develop their own technology capability without the consent of the other party (non-consensual acquisition of technology), firms should consider whether there are opportunities for collaboration before resorting immediately to the legal tools at their disposal to enforce intellectual property rights and seek financial recompense from infringers without due consideration of the learning, new product development and innovation context. We believe that the findings from our case studies can make a significant contribution towards a better understanding of non-consensual acquisition of technology in an innovation context. In particular, the information gained from the key informants provides their perspective on the causes of non-consensual acquisition of technology and their views and recommendations of how companies affected by this behaviour might be able to better handle this problem.

Packaging development: A conceptual framework for identifying new product opportunities

Packaging plays a key role in product success, particularly in the fast moving consumer goods industry (Wansink and Huffman, 2001) and can affect consumers’ purchasing decisions at the point of sale (Sara, 1990). However, relatively little has been written about packaging in the marketing literature (Johnsson, 1998; Saghir, 2002; Rundh, 2005). The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework with which to examine how packaging contributes to marketing in general and new product development (NPD) in particular. The paper reviews the literature and develops a unique framework that can be used to evaluate more fully the needs of all parties that are relevant to the development of packaging, including members of the distribution channel. This framework aims to provide new insight into the creation of new product opportunities through packaging development in a more systematic way than has been evidenced in the past.

Segmenting internet banking adopter and non‐adopters in the Turkish retail banking sector

Purpose – This study aims to identify perceptual, experience related, demographic, socio‐economic and situational characteristics of internet banking adopters and non‐adopters. In particular, perceptual differences between IB adopters and non‐adopters are to be examined.Design/methodology/approach – Based on relevant literature and previous research that included interviews with leading internet banking managers in Turkey, a questionnaire was designed. Face‐to‐face questionnaires were distributed to 155 convenience samples of internet users.Findings – There were significant differences between adopters and non‐adopters of the service in terms of their perceptual, experience and consumer related characteristics. Internet banking adopters perceived internet banking use as less risky, more user‐friendly and more useful compared to internet banking non‐adopters. Internet banking non‐adopters who intend to use the service in the future (i.e. later adopters) perceived internet banking use as less risky and more...

Connecting technological capabilities with market needs using a cyclic innovation model

One of the key limitations of current models of innovation is that they still represent variations on the familiar pipeline architecture. In addition, they are not embedded in the strategic issues of company boards and therefore remain isolated entities. Equally, the activity of entrepreneurship, while long recognized as a key factor in firm innovation management, is not captured and is inadvertently understated or only implied at best. We find that there is incongruence between current theoretical models and innovation practice. We offer a socio-technical framework that replaces the family of linear concepts by a cyclic alternative. It combines hard and soft sciences, bridges research and development and marketing communities and helps firms and policy makers to better understand the iterative nature of the innovation process.

Product counterfeiting, non‐consensual acquisition of technology and new product development: An innovation perspective

Purpose – To examine the literature on counterfeit products and explore whether imitation and counterfeit product activities can actually facilitate the development of new products.Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines the dominant school of thought on counterfeit products that characterises it as a significant economic and social problem throughout the world, and develops an alternative school of thought, which focuses on the overlooked benefits of imitation and counterfeit activities. The paper suggests that the concepts of counterfeit and imitation are often misrepresented as powerful lobby groups present their cases.Findings – This paper argues that while some counterfeit firms adopt short‐term profit motives other counterfeit firms demonstrate a longer‐term motive which manifests itself in an ability to reverse engineer, imitate and learn. Such firms may be suitable long‐term partners, in particular for multinational firms with operations in transition economies. Thus, firms face a difficu...

Enterprise resource planning and its impact on the innovative capability of the firm

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) business software has become one of the most successful products in the world. Microsoft, ICI, UBS and Procter & Gamble are a few of the firms that have claimed it has changed the way they work (Gartner, 2002). Indeed, substantial claims are made about the softwares capabilities. A complete system could take several years and several hundred million dollars to deploy. SAP, Oracle, Baan and PeopleSoft are the market leaders and SAP has over 20,000 R/3 products installed worldwide; Oracle has installed databases in nearly every one of the worlds top 500 companies. This paper surveys the literature and identifies that there is increasing evidence that firms fail to obtain the benefits of these investments within the anticipated timeframes (Pollock et al., 2003). Moreover, and more worrying for senior managers is the extent to which these fully integrated systems using on-line transactional processing are affecting the firms innovative ability. We argue in this paper that there is a fundamental clash of underlying principles between ERP systems requirements and the success factors of innovative organisations that lie at the heart of the innovation dilemma caused by the introduction of ERP systems into organisations.

New service development: Insights from an explorative study into the Turkish retail banking sector

Summary Technology has become of one the most significant strategic weapons for banks to survive in increasingly competitive bank markets. Today, banks in Turkey are competing aggressively to introduce new types of products and services that are driven mostly by technology. Internet banking is the latest and most innovative technology based service offered by the banks in Turkey. Yet, as users of Internet banking actively participate in the service provision, a customer oriented design according to needs and skills of the various classes of consumers becomes a major necessity to accelerate the diffusion of the service. Against this background, this research examines the role(s) market research and technology play in the development of Internet banking services and how consumers are involved in this process. The key finding of this study is that the banks involved in this research were developing and introducing Internet banking services with very limited scientific market research. Technology had the dominant role in this process. Market research was utilised only after the commercialisation of the service had taken place. The conceptual framework developed for this research identified the three key roles consumers play in the development of Internet banking services. This study contributes to the existing literature by developing an innovative conceptual framework within the context of new service development. The key findings of this study provide implications for the banking industry and future research.

Relational, interactive service innovation : Building branding competence

In this paper we discuss how to develop service innovation through building branding competence. We demonstrate that using relationships in a process of sharing adds value to the service innovation process. We draw upon two distinct perspectives in the literature. We agree that value in new service development comes from incorporating the consumer. Yet we also deduce that it is the firm’s core competencies that provide optimal resources for innovation. We then conceptualize how these two perspectives on service innovation can be integrated around relationships incorporating the ‘customer resource’. This process is relational, interactive service innovation. The conceptual framework we have developed offers a different approach for companies to view the new service development process in general and the building of branding competence in particular. We suggest that organizations may be able to improve their new service development process by emphasizing the internal and external linkages within the management of innovation.

How SMEs can benefit from supply chain partnerships

In recent literature on supply chain partnerships in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), there is controversy regarding the benefits of these partnerships. To resolve this controversy, specific information is needed on the implementation of these partnerships by SMEs; an area, that, thus far, has received little academic attention. In this paper, we examine different business functions (production, marketing and sales, purchasing and logistics, research and development (R&D) and finance) within a supply chain partnership. We collected data for each individual function from 279 high-tech SMEs and examined the relationship between the specific types of partnerships and the overall performance of the SMEs. The results indicate that it is only in the area of R&D that partnerships have a significant positive effect on overall firm performance. The results imply that SMEs primarily can benefit from particular types of supply chain partnerships, i.e. R&D partnerships. The results contribute to the debate in the literature by explaining why many SMEs were found not to benefit from these partnerships. We also provide implications for firms and how SMEs can better utilise supply chain management (SCM).