Do your technology scouting practices amount to digging in the dirt?
In today’s ultra-competitive and fast-changing business environment, innovation distinguishes the winners from the also-rans. But few companies have the time, resources and/or expertise to continually develop breakthroughs on their own. The days of internal labs conducting pure R&D are long gone. Instead companies have embraced Open Innovation (OI) – going beyond their own four walls for ideas and technologies with game-changing potential.
Technology scouting represents an organized approach for identifying needs, gaps and opportunities, and then finding solutions outside the borders of the enterprise. It is a business development and growth-oriented activity that goes hand in hand with Open Innovation. There are many forms (partnerships, licenses, acquisitions, crowdsourcing, contests, etc.) — often with multiple players – and the reach is increasingly global.
Management Roundtable’s White Paper, Technology Scouting: Practices of Industry Leaders, outlines the specific ins and outs from organizations that have successfully formalized the process for seeking external solutions and partnerships necessary for market success.
In this paper, you’ll read brief examples from expert Jay Paap as well as companies such as Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Corning, GlaxoSmithKlein, Kraft and others on issues such as:
- the role of a technology scout
- the qualities of a high performing scout
- how to focus searches and where to start looking
- basic screening and partner selection criteria
- corporate examples and best practices
