About
Key Client Level: Senior Vice President, Innovation and R&D
A global consumer product healthcare manufacturer dominates in its field; an $18 billion market. Yet emerging science, consumer expectations, and digital technologies create threats and new opportunities. For incumbents, incorporating big data, AI, and imaging with the trend towards services is hard to do.
Understanding the emerging research and provider ecosystem provides leverage to the incumbent. Understanding, designing and beneficially manipulating this provides new sources of breakthrough offerings. New collaborations can increase speed and share development risk.
Combining ecosystem mapping with strategic technology roadmapping quickly helps the client understand its opportunities, develop initial business cases and tell their innovation story.
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
Assignment
The client is a global consumer healthcare products company with operations and markets around the world. The company wanted to take a fundamental look at its technology and innovation in a core business area, and within that, establish new areas for breakthrough growth and make necessary investments.
Priority technology and non-technology capabilities needed to be identified along with a strategy for technology acquisition.
Process
The task of developing the technology roadmap was given to the R&D team. It went about building a small internal and external network of experts and working through the innovation process. The project was designed to run over four months a report was created for top management to make investment decisions.
Step 1: Debrief the current start of the art via expert interviews, that inform,
Step 2: Development of a strategic technology roadmap to identify and develop new product-service combinations and the required technologies.
Step 3: Interrogate the initial technology acquisition strategy and partnerships.
Results
Several high-potential product-services offerings were prioritised and initial business cases were developed. New technologies were identified and the key partnerships needed to develop in the company’s ecosystem together with a robust rationale for in-house development, partnerships and market buy-in of technologies.
A management report was produced to disseminate the results and make capability investment decisions.
Want to know more?
Read Here about the process to quickly but rigorously produce a strategic roadmap for your organisation. If you are interested in Technology Planning read Here about the approach.
Rob Munro is an innovation strategist and consultant focussing on improving innovation results within organisations. Please get in touch with me to discuss ways to bring greater effectiveness to your innovation and technology management processes.