An early identification
of discontinuities can prevent enterprises from losing ground in competition.
The need to stay up-to-date in technology development or to become a trendsetter
can be supported by technology foresight, a system or process which should enable
the users to identify new or overlapping technologies. The study analyses how
technology foresight is carried out in industrial companies. It is based on
interviews with representatives from 21 enterprises who have gained experiences
in technology foresight activities. One of the main results is that firms make
intensive use of internal and external networks to collect and analyze information.
The final conclusions discuss what public services or public services companies
can learn from this experience.
Introduction
In literature and management practice there is a considerable agreement about the importance of an as exact and early as possible anticipation of future market trends and technological developments. Obvious reasons are the
The great dynamics of these environmental alterations may lead to radical changes of the foundations on which the technological strategies of an enterprise are based on and thus endanger or even destroy its existence. However, chances can arise out of discontinuities if an enterprise is able to identify them and react faster than its contestants. An important starting point on how technological chances and risks in a dynamically developing environment can be identified is technology foresight.
Against this background the results of joint research on 'Technology Foresight in Industrial Enterprises' are presented here. The aim of this research was to learn more about the practices in technology foresight and the success factors for the design of technology foresight processes in internationally operating enterprises for there is plenty of basic literature that can be found concerning this important subject cf. for example [1-7] but a lack of empirical studies. This contribution concentrates on the question how technology foresight processes are organised and supported by information technologies so to find out how technology foresight is carried out in practice.
New or converging technologies are also relevant in public services. In this area however, technology foresight is rarely practised and hardly any cases are found in the literature. The final conclusions of our paper discuss what public services or public services companies can learn from the experience of industrial companies.
2 Research Approach and Characteristics of the Selected Enterprises
The intention was that the enterprises interviewed should be internationally active and had to be using ‘good practices’ in technology foresight. Altogether the two institutes performing the survey were able to conduct interviews with 21 enterprises. Fourteen of the companies interviewed were in the fields of computers, electronics, energy, automobiles or aviation. The telecommunication/ network operators sector was represented by four companies and the chemical/ pharmaceutical industry by three. Six of the corporations in the survey have their headquarters in Germany, eight elsewhere in Western and Northern Europe, five in Japan and three in the USA.
The following were interviewed as suitable partners within the enterprises:
Most interviews were conducted with senior managers responsible for the technology foresight process or for corporate R&D/technology strategy.
All companies interviewed described their competitive environment as highly dynamic. The interviews generally confirmed that international competition has intensified, continually forcing the enterprises to engage in incremental or radical innovations. Nevertheless, in their business fields traditional "slow cycle" business has to be carried on equally with, and parallel to, new "fast cycle" business. This clearly constitutes the main difficulty and the particular challenge for management.
The budget for research and development (R&D) in the interviewed firms was between 100 million and 4.5 billion ECU. With regard to R&D intensity, three main groups can be roughly distinguished: (1) enterprises in the field of electrical engineering/ electronics show a relatively high R&D intensity (between 10.3% and 5.6%), (2) the chemical firms occupy the mid-field, with R&D budgets between 7.7% and 4.2%, whereas (3) the R&D intensity of the telecommunication firms is relatively low (between 4.7% and 0.6%).
Despite the differences in R&D intensity mentioned above, the enterprises in the survey all conducted R&D both at a corporate level (corporate research) and at the level of divisions/ business units (technology or development centres, technology departments). Generally speaking, corporate research laboratories conduct long-term applied research with a time horizon of more than 2½ years, whereas development in the business units is short-term technology development with a time horizon of one to two years. Thus it is not surprising that in the firms in the survey, technology foresight is definitely focused at a corporate level. The usual "rule of thumb" (10% of the R&D budget set aside for corporate R&D) is not always reflected by the corporate research budgets in the enterprises interviewed, which range between 6% and 30% of the total R&D budget, depending on the enterprise.
The international dimension plays an important role in technology foresight: (1) some enterprises, particularly from smaller countries, perform over half their R&D - or even more - abroad; (2) in firms from medium-sized countries in particular the proportion of R&D performed abroad lies between 10% and 30%; and (3) Japanese enterprises are especially strongly oriented towards their own country with regard to R&D.
This marked orientation towards the country of origin in R&D is one of the main differences between Japanese and western companies. Another is that in Japanese firms, corporate research is generally financed more strongly via company funding, so that the proportion of contract research performed by corporate research for the business units, at 10 - 30%, is lower than in the West. These differences have also been confirmed by other studies [8-10].
3 Results from the Interviews
In literature technology foresight supports strategic decision processes and is understood as „radar" [11] which should systematically seize strategically relevant informations on time. The beginnings for technology foresight date back to the second half of the 60s cf. for example [12-13]. A Basic work is Ansoff’s „weak signal concept" [14] which says that changes can be perceived before becoming effective. An early perception of these signals prolongs the time for enterprises to act and makes strategic action able instead of short term reaction. The problem is to interpret these signals when perceived. While there is no generally accepted term for technology foresight among the companies in the survey expressions such as technology monitoring, technology watch, technology trend analysis or technology foresight are used to subsume everything referred to in the literature as technology analysis, technology monitoring, technology scanning and technology prognosis.
Although the firms have different understandings of technology foresight and engage in it with varying degrees of intensity, there was a consensus among the companies about the need for foresight. Summarising the interviews, it can be stated that the firms’ aims in conducting technology foresight are
The following core elements of technology foresight help to achieve these aims:
The enterprises in the survey emphasised the necessity for technology foresight input, both into research and technology strategies and into strategic planning.
When determining time horizons, technology foresight at a corporate level has to be distinguished from technology foresight at the level of divisions/ business units. For business units a time horizon between 1 and 3 years was mentioned in the interviews and for technology foresight by corporate research a horizon between 3 and 30 years. Most of the interviews mentioned technology foresight time horizons between five and eight years. Companies which gave a time horizon of up to 20 years are active in fields with a long product or technology cycle, such as pharmaceuticals, energy supply or energy generation. Obviously the time horizon of technology foresight is influenced in each case by the specific market and technology dynamics involved, and corresponds roughly to the company’s time horizon of strategic planning.
In the enterprises interviewed, technology foresight is internationally oriented. This international orientation varies greatly in its form of organisation, however, and depends on the internationalisation strategy and distribution of the company’s R&D institutions abroad.
The central focus of technology foresight is on technology trends and the use of technology for improved or new processes, products, applications or services. Economic, ecological and socio-cultural aspects are secondary at a general level and play a part when concrete applications are concerned. Technology impact assessment in the sense of a systematic analysis and evaluation of the impacts and risks associated with a technology is performed by a few companies only. Thus, for instance, environmental aspects and "sustainable development" in the areas of chemistry, energy and aviation, or information and communication behaviour in the field of "integrated services", play a bigger role in those particular business fields, and therefore also in technology foresight in those fields. As a result of the interviews it can be generally stated that the more economic, environmental and socio-cultural aspects constitute technology development requirements in a particular field, the more strongly these dimensions will be included in technology foresight.
3.2 How Technology Foresight is Organisationally Anchored within Enterprises
3.2.1 Technology Foresight within the Company
Technology foresight in enterprises takes place at three different organisational levels (cf. Fig. 1).
Firstly, technology foresight is conducted at a corporate level, mainly by corporate research. technology foresight activities are part of the everyday work of researchers in the central research laboratory. Research workers constitute the core of technology foresight at the corporate level and feed their information directly into new project ideas. technology foresight is strongly oriented towards the most recent research results, technology and scientific disciplines. Here long-term, strategic thinking predominates. Besides this involvement of central research in technology foresight, in some companies in the survey there is also a special office ("Technology Assessment", "Technology Watch") that is exclusively concerned with technology foresight at a corporate level. This special office is also attached to the administration of corporate research and either reports directly to research management or to the executive vice president for technology, or to cooperating business units. The tasks of this office include carrying out technology foresight projects of its own, as well as coordination and support of the technology foresight process.
Figure 1: Organisational Levels of Technology Foresight
Secondly, technology foresight is performed - much less extensively - by the divisions and business units. This level of technology foresight has a short-term orientation and is largely determined by day-to-day business. It is mainly concerned with identifying new customers and markets, as well as ‘benchmarking’ competitors. At the level of business units, the concern is not so much intrinsically with technology foresight as with the foresight of techniques (in the sense of converting the results gained from research and technology into concrete products or processes).
The formal structural levels of the corporation and business units are overlaid by a third level of technology foresight structures: these are the so-called "lateral" or "virtual" structures, cf. for instance [15-17]. In the companies interviewed, these virtual structures were present in various forms (e.g. core technologies, networks of technology informers, ‘task forces’, virtual future technology centres). The purpose of these virtual structures is to create direct communication, cross-cutting hierarchies and functions, between the actors in technology foresight. The advantages of these forms of organisation are their high flexibility, their temporary nature, their high degree of autonomy, and the smoother running of cooperations.
3.2.2 External Technology Foresight Networks
As well as these three intra-firm levels of technology foresight, the formation of external networks is important. These networks may be either formal or informal. This corresponds with literature where the importance of individual networks either formal or informal is being stressed [18]. The network structure is formed by internal and external actors and their relation towards each other, whereby each person can be seen as a knot in the network.
As most of the employees have already individual networks of their own attempt should be made to connect these networks so as to use the contacts and relationships between the actors (i.e. individual contacts to research institutes and universities, connections that result out of joint research projects, memberships in associations, etc.) [19].
In this context the following elements were named by interviewed firms (cf. Fig. 1):
Only in exceptional cases did interviewed firms consider it appropriate to transfer technology foresight functions to an external provider of services. External contracts were given in isolated instances - for example, if an information search for very specific questions was involved, or individual studies or reports were required. However, interviewees considered that the identification and evaluation of the topics had to take place within the firm.
3.2.3 Organisational Forms of International Technology Foresight
All the firms in the survey perform technology foresight internationally, but there are big differences in the ways it is organised:
The greatest advantages can be gained from technology foresight when it is performed internationally by research centres in the most important regions abroad - "weak signals " can best be picked up on-the-spot. Intensive contacts are needed in order to gather informal information, background knowledge and knowledge from experience. These contacts have to be built up and cultivated over the years. Informers and "listening posts" usually have to make do with specific, relatively formal sources of information.
3.3 Forms the Technology Foresight Process does Take in Enterprises
3.3.1 Process Steps in Technology Foresight and Formulation of Information Needs
At this point, it should again be emphasised that in approx. half the firms in the survey, technology foresight is not a formalised process. Firms give as their reason for this that technology foresight activities are in themselves non-structured and non-linear. In a second group of firms, technology foresight is not an autonomous process but is a sub-process of project management and strategic R&D management. technology foresight itself is not a formalised process, but is structured and integrated through the procedures of R&D management. A third group of firms (one-third of interviewed firms) additionally have a specialised technology foresight office.
The firms interviewed were unanimous in ascribing to the technology foresight process the process phases of identification, filtering, data processing and data evaluation. Whether or not technology foresight activities include all of these successive phases depends largely on the project concerned and on the technology foresight objective. A technology foresight activity does not necessarily always lead to a new research or innovation project.
Some firms suggested that the formulation of information needs should be regarded as a process phase ("What is the objective?"). In this way, a decision could be made right from the start whether first to delimit a specific area of observation or identification of new trends for the search ("inside-out" perspective) or whether to commence the search with a broad, non-limited orientation ("outside-in" perspective). The enterprises interviewed made use of both approaches in their technology foresight, with the "inside-out" perspective predominating, since a broad, non-specifically oriented search takes up a lot of time and leads to "information overflow".
3.3.2 Task Performers in the Technology Foresight Process
Following indications from the interviews and the literature, the process of technology foresight can be divided into in six phases (cf. Fig. 2).
Certainly, the process scheme figure only represents a possible course of process steps which do not necessarily take place in this order. Some steps may also be skipped or carried out in a different order. Decision preparation and evaluation/ decision constitute the interface to strategic R&D planning, and overlap with it. Enterprises were unanimous in stating that the realisation phase was no longer a part of the technology foresight process.
Figure 2: Stylized phases of the Technology Foresight process
When linking particular performers of technology foresight tasks with the various technology foresight process phases, a distinction has to be made between different organisational levels of technology foresight within the enterprise. If only the most important level, i.e. the corporate level, is considered, technology foresight takes place
The need for information may be formulated either ‘bottom-up’ by individual research workers, technology informers or a ‘task force’, or as a result of a workshop; however, it may also be a ‘top-down’ initiative coming from the executive vice president for technology, from R&D planning, from the research or technology strategy committee (or its members) or from an individual business unit. The search for and identification of new trends, the selection of information sources, methods and instruments, as well as the gathering of data and information, is generally performed either by the researchers, the informers or one of the ‘virtual’ organisational forms.
In the firms interviewed the filtering, analysis and interpretation of the data and information collected is usually a strongly interactive and discursive process. Discussions take place in the project teams or research groups; or may involve either research programme managers or business units.
The filtering, analysis and interpretation phase produces different results, depending on the level involved. technology foresight at the level of individual researchers in corporate research leads to an input into new ideas and proposals for projects. These may be contract research projects for business units or research projects financed from company funding. Changes in existing research programmes may also be made. Preparation now takes place for decisions by the research team, by the research group, by the head of the research laboratory or by R&D Planning. The results of technology foresight performed by a network of informers working with the technology foresight special office, or by virtual forms of organisation, have a different emphasis. Essentially, they are mainly at the level of programmes and serve as an input for the generating of new research programmes or the adaptation of existing ones. An equally important input comes from the identification of unexplored fields, leading to the generating of new fields of innovation and strategic innovative projects at corporate and business unit level. The preparation for decisions is performed mainly by R&D Planning or the technology foresight special office.
All in all, among the companies in the survey it is the phases of decision preparation and evaluation/ financing decisions which are the most formally structured process steps. This is because they reach far into the domain of strategic R&D management. None of the firms interviewed regarded the subsequent realisation of a project or research programme as a technology foresight process.
The enterprises in the survey use numerous different methods and instruments for technology foresight (see Inset Box 3-1). The most extensively used are patent and publication analyses, market and competition analyses, scenario/ creativity techniques, ‘competitive intelligence’ and ‘technology roadmaps’. There is a definite predominance of methods and instruments based on the interactions between different players. Among quantitatively oriented instruments, on the other hand, simple instruments predominate. Great importance is attached to methods involving a high proportion of interviews with internal or external experts, and to "teasing out" ideas in discussions or workshops. Methods are also used in technology foresight which are not only useful for searches but for visual representation.
Inset Box 3-1: Technology Foresight: Methods and Instruments Used by Interviewed Firms
In most of the companies in the survey, methods and instruments are not used systematically but are adopted in individual cases, with participants usually making the decisions themselves. Some of the companies stated that they have a coordinated set of different methods and instruments. This indicates an experience-based procedure with regard to method and a degree of methodological confidence.
3.3.4 Results and Addressees of the Process Phases
It was not possible, on the basis of the interviews, to ascribe individual results to individual process steps. This certainly reflects the non-structured nature of the technology foresight process in most firms. Results range from short e-mails to inputs into ‘technology roadmaps’, project proposals or new research programmes (see Inset Box 3-2). Brief reports to individual addressees or to a network of addressees predominate. Long reports are avoided more and more, as they are hardly ever used.
With regard to information flows, both directions - bottom-up and top-down - are found, but ‘bottom-up’ definitely predominates due to the strongly person-oriented nature of the technology foresight process. Information is sought and identified especially by individual researchers and employees and is later distributed at a higher level of the hierarchy. However, the formulation of information needs or search assignments may result from top-down initiatives of the Board of Directors, strategic planning department, a strategic committee or business groups.
Inset Box 3-2: (Partial) Results of Technology Foresight in Interviewed Firms
Among the addressees of technology foresight, a distinction again has to be made between the three organisational levels. The people and institutions that can essentially be regarded as the addressees of technology foresight at the level of corporate research are those responsible for the tasks of evaluation/ decision-making (e.g. research programme managers, the executive vice president for technology, the chief technology officer or strategy committees).
At the level of the technology informer network, two different orientations can be distinguished among the firms in the survey. In the first, the technology foresight special office is strongly oriented towards providing information for the management of corporate research or the executive vice president for technology; who represent their ‘priority customers’. The second model, on the other hand, is more strongly oriented towards the business groups and is concerned with evolving plans of action and initiating innovation projects for individual business units, or projects that cut across the business units. In this model, technology foresight aims to develop a "key action plan" based on analysis, which is subsequently implemented by the business units.
The results of the technology foresight process are generally made available to the addressees mentioned above and to those involved in the process. In most enterprises technology foresight operates according to the "need to know" rule. All others who are interested can get the results on demand. Access to databases is regulated by safety devices and password. In all the enterprises interviewed, the results of technology foresight are made available only within the firm.
Customers and suppliers are usually involved in the technology foresight process only as information sources. In a few cases, however, a joint process of technology foresight takes place as part of a joint development ("co-development"). Companies prefer to engage in co-development with their leading customer.
technology foresight is regarded by the companies in the survey as a component of strategic (integrated) R&D management and is an integral part of it. Depending on the firm’s specific form of organisation and orientation, this is designated as "Core Technology Management", "Capability Management", "Global Development System" or "Integrated R&D Management". Strategic R&D management also includes coordination of company and business unit planning and R&D/ technology strategy. Strong integration of technology foresight into strategic R&D management is an indication that the companies are strongly results-oriented when engaging in technology forecasting.
If technology foresight is integrated into strategic R&D management, then there is often no special organisational form of interface management. However, good face-to-face communication is a prerequisite for successfully bridging the interface.
The influence of technology foresight results on technology strategy is described by most of the interviewed firms as medium to large. technology foresight is perceived as being directly useful and necessary for strategy formulation. technology foresight results flow directly into 6-month and 3-year research planning. This applies both to the orientation of the planning with the business groups (contract research) and to the research programme financed from corporate funding (company research). technology foresight is regarded as the basis for new fields of business; it can lead to new research programmes and strategic innovation projects.
A distinction needs also to be made between organisational levels when assessing the influence of technology foresight on technology strategy. Apparently its impact is described as being larger when the technology foresight concerned is at the level of researchers and is a part of the continuous R&D process. Where there is a technology foresight special office, its influence tends to be estimated as smaller. However if the technology foresight office is successful in its foresight of discontinuities, the influence of technology foresight increases substantially.
3.4 The Information Sources for Technology Foresight in Enterprises
Various information sources can be used in technology foresight. The companies interviewed use numerous different sources with varying intensity. As well as the sources enumerated in the interview guidelines (see Inset Box 3-3), we came across the following new ideas:
From the viewpoint of the enterprises in the survey, the formation of external and internal networks is highly significant for technology foresight. Personal contacts and communication, and the formation of formal and informal networks, are complementary.
Inset Box 3-3: Information Sources for Technology Foresight
The Internet and Intranet, patent analyses and publication analyses were named as further important information sources. These play a role particularly in the pharmaceuticals industry, as new substances are generally protected by patents. For some companies, participation in national or European science and technology programmes is important. This applies especially to companies from small home countries (e.g. Scandinavian countries) and to enterprises from other countries who want to gain access to the research system of the foreign host in this way. Among firms that have already made intensive use of public science promotion, however, interest in using it for technology foresight seems to be declining.
The question of how filtered information is dealt with is closely linked with the question of data storage. In almost all the enterprises, project-related databases, or databases containing the whole research programme, are built up or operated. As a rule the predominating idea is to have "short-lived" or flexible databases, so that items of information are first filtered by employees and then entered. Information that is considered irrelevant is not stored or entered in the archives. There is no "recycling" of items of information. Some of the firms mentioned that in the past, they had merely created "data cemeteries" by documenting huge quantities of data.
3.5 Software Tools Used to Support Technology Foresight
In most firms in the survey, software support is not yet very far advanced. More than a quarter of the companies interviewed use no software at all in technology foresight, others use standard software. Software tools are used primarily in the phases of identification, data processing and passing on/distribution of information. The use of software in the evaluation phase is unanimously described as not making sense, since the evaluating has to be done by the colleagues concerned. Tools can provide support but cannot come up with solutions.
With regard to the use of databases, four groups of enterprises can be distinguished:
For the passing on and distributing of information, firms mainly use Intranet and groupware systems (particularly Lotus Notes). The use of Intranet and Lotus Notes groupware is company-wide in most western firms and links the research laboratories internationally with the various different locations. In the Japanese firms interviewed, database networks, which are mainly confined to the research laboratories in Japan, reflect the enterprises’ strong orientation towards their home country.
3.6 Usefulness and Success Factors in the Performance of Technology Foresight
3.6.1 Goal Attainment and Servicing of the Technology Foresight Process
With technology foresight, companies were primarily pursuing the aim of anticipating new technologies and technological discontinuities. All the firms interviewed stated that they were either well on the way to attaining the goals they had set themselves, or that they had already done so. Percentages up to 80% were given in the interviews for the degree of goal attainment.
There is generally no formal controlling for technology foresight; rather, controlling tends to be embedded in the "regular" controlling that takes place as a part of strategic R&D management. Not is there any specific, special evaluation of technology foresight or its results. The Japanese companies interviewed put forward the interesting view that controlling would be bad for technology foresight and would inhibit the necessary creativity. Responsibility for modifying and servicing the technology foresight process is decided according to the organisational level at which foresight is being performed.
3.6.2 Criteria and Important Factors for a Successful Technology Foresight Process
The criteria for the success of the technology foresight process given by interviewed firms tended to be ‘soft’. The following points were mentioned as important factors for successful functioning:
What concerns the importance of technology foresight in the selection of R&D projects and in innovation successit can be recorded that the results of technology foresight constitute an input into, and exert influence on:
When assessing the influence of technology foresight on the success of innovative projects, interview partners were very cautious. The reason given for this attitude was that numerous different determinants influence the success of innovation, so that no direct cause-and-effect relationship can be established between technology foresight and innovation success. Research on innovation and success factors reaches similar conclusions, cf. for example [20-22].
4 Conclusions: What can be learnt for Public Services and Public Services Companies?
Technology foresight is essential for the early identification of unexplored areas and technological discontinuities, activities which are necessary to secure the innovative strength and competitiveness of the enterprise in the long term. It may be true that without a functioning technology foresight process a technology-based company would very probably go under within a few years, or become fully dependent on some other companies.
Whereas it is increasingly recognized by R&D-performing large companies in industrial sectors that institutionalized and systematic technology foresight activities are needed to sustain innovation capabilities this is not the case in public services and in public services companies. They regard themselves purely as user of (new) technology and with no influence on technology development.
One reason for that may that the duties of public services or public services companies are different from industrial firms; they include:
Within our investigated sample we have included two telecommunication network operating companies which are establishing technology foresight processes. Not long ago these firms would have been categorized as 'public services companies'. These examples encourage us to argue that for the achievement of these duties and in order to improve its own performance, public services and public services companies should take part in companies’ technology foresight activities or watch technological trends by themselfes. Our argument has two dimensions:
Indispensable prerequisite of course in order to achieve these goals is unlimited communication and information flows within these networks, especially between suppliers and customers. The integration of public services or public services companies in technology foresight networks may increase their role as, among others, driven factor for innovation and hereby have positive effects on the economy as a whole. Conducting technology foresight actively through public services or public services companies may improve public services by investing in newest technology, save tax money and reduce the dependence from a single producer.
In future - as can be seen in the United States or in Germany with respective 'deregulation' efforts of their governments - public services or public services companies are going to be forced even more to act as a wholly responsible entity with a strong customer and services focus. Managing technology in the sense of using technology for problemsolving, increasing productivity and the quality of public services may therefore become a more and more important management task in a sector which has long been (and is still) regarded just as ‘silent’ and ‘out-dated’ technology user. The importance of technology foresight is likely to increase tremendously for actors in the field of public services or public services companies of any sort, who may in future even be obliged to conduct technology foresight by themselves.
Our final conclusions can yet be characterized as a normative approach. However, they should serve as a starting point for further discussion and research in this field. There are hardly any cases of technology foresight in public services companies reported in the scientific literature. The examples from industrial companies may be used for learning about the significance, organization and process design of technology foresight in the (public) services sector.
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