Technological Innovation Through Tech Mining For Market Dominance

Innovation means technological change. The technology change results in practical implication or commercialization, it does not mean just generation of ideas. The importance of technological innovation in today’s competitive economy is very clear, as today the worldwide economy depends on technology and technological innovation to an extraordinary degree.

Technological innovation plays important role in the economical growth of any country. Us, Japan, and other European countries are developed only due to there technological progress. In recent years, Singapore, India, China and many other countries are advancing dramatically due to technological innovations and progress. High technology companies are a significant and growing component of the economy. The competitive of these companies depends on technological innovations. Innovations improves standard of living. Developments in medical and pharmaceutical technologies have delivered extensive returns in health and life span.

Technological innovation involves tech mining. Tech mining includes understanding the technological innovation processes to track them more effectively and get informed about latest happenings and make valuable business decisions about R&D and subsequent implementation and adoption choices.

Innovation is defined as the process by which technological ideas are generated, developed and transformed into new business products, process and services that are used to make a profit and establish marketplace advantage. A better understanding of the innovation process is essential to figure out empirical measures deriving from innovation activities to generate actionable technological intelligence.

Tech mining is done through data or information extraction from multiple data sources, compilation and analyzing the results and represents key findings in actionable visual representation for easy understanding to what is happening now and predicting the future technologies.

Various types of technology analysis that can be aided by tech mining is as follows:

(A) Technology Monitoring (technology watch) – cataloguing, characterizing, identifying and interpreting technology development activities

(B) Competitive Technological Intelligence (CTI) -exploring out “Who is doing what?”

(C) Technology Forecasting-anticipating possible future development paths for particular technology domains

(D) Technology Road mapping – tracking evolutionary steps in related technologies and, sometimes, product families, technology diversification and technology tree

(E) Technology Assessment – anticipating the possible unintended, direct, indirect, and delayed consequences of particular technological changes

(F) Technology Foresight – strategic planning (especially national) with emphasis on technology roles and priorities

(G) Technology Process Management – getting people involved to make decisions about technology

(H) Science and Technology Indicators – time series that track advances in national (or other) technological capabilities

Reasons to Do Tech Mining

Forecast likely development paths for emerging technologies – identify new products, research or service opportunity
Identify competitors, or collaborators, at the “fuzzy front end” of new product development – keep tract of your competitor’s activity for market dominance.
Identify potential customers for your intellectual property (“IP”) – new licensing, collaboration, acquisition and merger opportunities.
Discover additional application arenas for the outputs of your R&D – identify how to develop new products and services from your existing business processes, without inventing more.
Gauge market potential for prospective technology-based products and services
Be a wiser consumer of others’ science and technology
Manage the risks of technology development and implementation ba

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Technology is Disruptive – And Empowering

Technology changes the way we work, live our lives, and have fun. Technology can empower businesses with improvements in productivity, faster development and production cycles, superior decision making by employees, and enhanced customer service. But deriving these benefits from incorporating new technology is not always a smooth process. Technology is often, at first, disruptive before it becomes empowering.

Although the ideas developed in this article may have general applicability, they are mainly intended to relate to the incorporation of new information and communications technologies into business processes. Information technologies involve computers and their peripheral equipment as well as the data flow across local area networks. Communications involve any voice and video activity including the telephone system and related equipment as well as the communications pathways creating the wide area networks.

Technology Changes Business Processes

Every action conducted within a business is part of one process or another. Sometimes the processes are easily defined and readily observable, as in the path of a purchase order. At other times, the process is not so clear but nevertheless it still exists even if by default.

New technologies are introduced into business to:

Speed up existing processes
Extend the capabilities of existing processes
Change the processes
In changing the processes, the new technologies will often allow new ways of conducting business that were not previously possible.

Other than simply speeding up existing processes, new technologies will be disruptive when first introduced. This results from having to change patterns of behavior and/or relationships with others. When disruption occurs, productivity often suffers at first, until such time as the new processes become as familiar as the old ones. At this point, hopefully, the goal has been achieved of reaching a higher level of productivity than the level at which it started before the introduction of the new technology.

Therefore a common cycle that occurs with the introduction of new technologies includes:

Disruption
Lower productivity, and, finally,
A higher plateau of productivity than the starting point
The obvious goals for introducing new technologies are to:
Minimize the disruption
Minimize the time it takes to increase productivity
Maximize the gain in productivity
In achieving these goals it is helpful to understand the:
Context in which the processes operate, that is, who will be impacted by changes in the specific processes affected
Democratizing potential of technology
Types of people that will react in very different ways to new technologies
The processes by which a company operates and the introduction of new technologies do not exist in isolation. Both of these exist within a context that may be a part of and affect:
The social relationships within an organization and possibly with companies with whom you conduct business
Political (power) structures within an organization
How individuals view themselves and their abilities
Technology can be democratizing. If it is used to create and disseminate information useful to the mission and goals of the business, it can be a great equalizer between “levels” of management and staff. The key word is “disseminate.” If access to the information is decentralized, and easy communication of the information is allowed, then “front line” workers can improve the quantity and quality of decisions they make without having to involve layers of management.

Types of People from a Technology Perspective

From a perspective of introducing new technology into your company, you may find it helpful to understand the following four types of people:

Innovators/embracers
Enthusiasts
Acceptors
Naysayers
Innovators/embracers will investigate new technologies on their own. They will sometimes be helpful to introducing new technologies that would otherwise not have been known to the company. They will sometimes be a “thorn” in pushing for new technologies they think will be useful (or just “neat” to have) but do not fit the company’s agenda or objectives. These people will embrace new technologies when introduced by others, will often be the first ones to fully incorporate and make use of it, and could help others to fully utilize new technologies.
Enthusiasts will accept new technology enthusiastically. They won’t usually seek it out but will be eager to incorporate it into their processes where appropriate. As a result of their openness, they will often readily learn how to use the new technology and may also be useful in assisting others through the learning process.

Acceptors will accept new technology because it is required. They will not seek it out. In fact, they will often try to avoid it at first until they are forced to accept it. Once they understand the new technology is here to stay, they will willingly learn how to benefit from it or, at least, live with it.

Naysayers habitually oppose new technologies and often are very vocal about their opposition. They often gripe about any changes and will often never change if they don’t have to or they quit before they are made to change “the way they do things.”

The productivity vs. time curve will look different for each of these types of people. Think of how each person in your own organization fits into these four types. Think of how that impacts deriving the full benefits that you’ve carefully targeted. Think of how that impacts your ability to discover additional benefits once the technologies are implemented. Understanding the differences can help smooth out the rough spots during and after the implementation process.

Lessen the Disruption; Increase the Empowerment

Understanding the context in which processes exist, the democratizing potential of technology, and the types of people will help you achieve the goals stated above for a more rapid payoff from a smoother introduction of new technologies.

In addition, make the new technologies transparent to the user or, at least, make them as intuitive to operate as possible. Extra time in pre-planning the introduction of new technologies and training employees in the use of the technologies can provide a return many times greater than the hours spent in planning and training. You can achieve faster increases in productivity, reduced impact on customers, and lower burdens on support staff.

With proper planning and training, the productivity curve will increase at a faster rate and to a higher level than it might otherwise have achieved

Ed Mass is President of Mass Strategic Communications, Inc., a telecommunications consulting firm since 1993. Visit [http://www.voip-telephone-system.com] and [http://www.masscom.com] for more information. We specialize in Transforming Telecommunications from a Tactical Tool To a Strategic Business Resource. We Integrate Business Strategies with Technology Opportunities.

We act as an extension of your staff. We are business strategists to increase the performance of your company through intelligent and cost effective use of technology.

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