1. TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT 5a: MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS 1 Technological Competitive Position CP Beukman Engineering Management Programme University of Canterbury Issue 1.0 April 1999

2. The right thing to do b Managing technology strategically means doing three things right:

3. Doing the right thing 1 b Recognising important technologies for the business and the corporation - by their maturitiesby their maturities by their competitive impactby their competitive impact

4. Doing the right thing 2 b Mastering these important technologies to gain sustainable competitive advantage

5. Doing things right 3 b Using these technologies effectively by integrating them with the other success factors in the business

6. Maturity b Maturity places technology along a continuum and helps one to understand the possibilities for additional advances in the technology

7. Competitive Impact b Competitive impact of a technology is an indicator of the difference such additional advances make for the business

9. Technological competitive position b Means the ability of a particular company to gain sustainable advantage through technology (and R&D) in competition with other companies which are also working toward the same objective

10. Competitive strength b Technological competitive strength in the business is a measure of the degree to which a company masters important technologies relative to its competitors

11. Template to assess competitive strength

12. Choice of approach b The maturity of critical technologies will have a choice (together with the enterprise’s competitive position) on the choice of strategy to develop those technologies. Embryonic - yes invest in developmentEmbryonic - yes invest in development mature - more participants etc; think againmature - more participants etc; think again

13. Ignoring competitors b Even worse than undertaking an R&D objective from an inferior technological position in the face of known strong R&D competitors, b is undertaking the work in ignorance of competitors’ technological competitive position

14. Policy instruments b Technological maturity b Competitive position b are key instruments in setting R&D policy

15. Products b The primary outcomes of a technology based strategy are products and services b Product design is fundamental to commercial success

16. Leadership b Leadership requires excellence in all functions that contribute to success - this includes R&D. b R&D excellence requires clear market visionclear market vision knowledge of competitors’ strengthsknowledge of competitors’ strengths ability to assemble and focus R&D resourcesability to assemble and focus R&D resources

17. SME success b Successes of many SMEs is due in part to an almost single-minded dedication of R&D strength to a single technical area, focused on a single business opportunity

18. The Paradox b How to maintain intellectual vitality and creativity of an R&D organization while denying resources for intellectually attractive ideas in favour of strategically more important alternatives

19. Measurement Issues b Using lack of sales as a way to uncover poor design choices is akin to using aircraft crashes as a method to determine design design flaws. b What can be measured early to find out if the product will work?

20. Summary b The evaluation of technological competitive position is a vital, if often neglected, tool of effective R&D planning. b The company that apply the concept effectively will always possess significant advantages over companies that do not.