ENPR 31042
Principles and Practice of Technology
Management
Dr. Chamli Pushpakumara
Faculty of Computing and Technology
2021
Session 9: At the end of this lecture, you should be able to:
Technology Describe the key external and internal factors that affect
the performance of an organisation.
strategy - II Evaluate strategies employed by different companies in
scanning their external and internal environments
• Top Managers
• Make decisions about the direction of an
organization
Relevance to Middle Managers
theories of • Manage other managers
management
you learnt First-line Managers
• Direct nonmanagerial
employees
Team Leaders
• Manage activities of a work team
Source: Robbins, Coulter and DeCenzo, Fundamentals of Management, 11th Edition, 2020, Pearson
Foundations
of
technology
strategy
4
Basic strategic management model
5
External Environment
Source: White and Burtom
External • Two interlinked processes to help improve a company’s
competitiveness
scanning- • Technology Watching is the organized, selective and
Technology ongoing way of collecting external information, analyze it
and turn it into knowledge in order to anticipate to the
watch and changes and ensuring less risk decisions
business • Read the article: TECHNOLOGY WATCHING AND
COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE , European Commission –
intelligence Enterprise and Industry
• Watch the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj1q4zunuN0
A good technology watching process must provide us information about:
External - Technologies that are being researched about (published or
scanning- patented) in a specific field
Technology - Technological solutions available
watch and - Emerging technologies
business - Dynamics of technologies (what technologies are becoming more
intelligence popular and which ones are obsolete )
- Research lines and technology trends in the main competitor
companies
- Research centres, teams, and leaders in the generation of new
technologies, ability of transferring that technology
TECHNOLOGY WATCHING AND COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE , European Commission
– Enterprise and Industry
• Motorola has an “intelligence department” that monitors
External conference publications, journals, magazines, and trade
gossip.
scanning- • The department then prepares a “technology
Example @ roadmap” that tell top management:
Motorola • where developments are taking place
(Read the case • how they can be incorporated into company’s
studies available) product and processes;
• how much it will cost; and what competitors are
doing with technology.
• It is important for firms to carry out technological scanning to monitor
new technologies and improvements that are coming out within and
External outside their industry.
scanning- • Evaluation of competitive status among conventional competitors
is relatively straightforward
Example • Less obvious competitions come from the fields that company
(Read the case experts often do not monitor and are poorly equipped to evaluate
studies available)
Example: The entry of Texas Instruments (TI), an electronics
firm, into the watch industry by the manufacture of
low-cost electronic digital watches upset the big Swiss
and Japanese firms in the watch industry who had to
then adopt the new technology.
SWOT Analysis
Internal • Starting point for a company’s strategy
scanning- • Establishes where your company is now
Business • Determines its strengths and weaknesses
• Identifies opportunities and threats in the
light of defined objectives
• Every business has an internal technological system
(different technologies embodied in the value chain of
the firm)
• The parts of this technological system
Internal • are at varying stages of maturity
scanning- • are of varying degree of criticality to competitive
success, and
Technology • represent differing degree of opportunity or threat
for the future
• Integrating technology into the strategy formulation
process requires a preliminary step: the technology audit,
or diagnosis of the firm’s current technological state.
• Taking the inventory of the firm’s technological assets is a
Internal difficult task because the technologies themselves are
complex, integrated in the skills of the staff and employees
scanning- (the 4 embodiment forms).
Technology • The identification and inventory of the firm’s technologies
can only be carried out with the active collaboration of the
audit firm’s different units.
https://www.inc.com/comcast/conducting-a-technology-audit.html
Internal • Once the various technologies have been identified,
scanning- they can be classified in terms of their
importance/criticality for competitive advantage
Classification • There are several classification systems for technologies
of emphasizing the size of their competitive impact
• Examples:
technologies • Technology life cycles
• Technology portfolio
Internal • Technology life cycle:
• The firm’s ability to
scanning- classify its technologies
according to the stages
Classification of the life cycle (stages
of maturity) has
of important strategic
implications.
technologies • it enables the firm to
determine whether it
should continue to invest
in particular
technologies or shift to
others.
Stages in Technology Importance of
Life Cycle Technology for Competitive
Internal Advantage
scanning- Emerging Have not yet demonstrated potential for
Classification changing the basis of competition
of Pacing Have demonstrated their potential for
changing the basis of competition
technologies Key Are embedded in and enable products/processes
Have major impact on cost/performance/quality
Allow proprietary/patented position
Base Minor impact on value added stream,
commodity
• The technology portfolio
• The notion of technology portfolio aims at providing an
Internal overall diagnosis of the firm’s technological situation
scanning- • The various technologies deployed by the firm are
Classification positioned in a matrix whose two dimensions reflect
criteria that are considered essential for evaluating its
of technological assets in a strategic perspective.
technologies Differentiation
technology
Competitive
impact
Base technology
High Low
Technological
capability
Business Portfolio and Technology Portfolio
Internal
scanning-
Classification
of
technologies
Business portfolio video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNR49lk5dS0
Technology portfolio
Internal
scanning-
Classification
of
technologies
How to relate to your assignment.
Questions?
Thank you.
