Methods and tools of corporate technology foresight

Technological developments can be both, opportunity or threat to businesses. While they may have disruptive character and do add to the uncertainty every company is faced with, foreseeing these developments and acting timely is crucial for success. Methods and tools of technology foresight can reduce uncertainty and prepare for future changes. Depending on characteristics such as industry, size, or internationalization different approaches make sense on the corporate level. Success of foresight activities is related to a company’s capabilities in the identification of developments and trends, but also in their interpretation and the utilization of gained insights. The following article will give an overview and examples of best practices for corporate technology foresight. 1. The need for corporate foresight The dynamics organizations are confronted with – including technological change, growing competition, changes in society and culture, and changes in legislation and regulation – forces them constantly to innovate and to adapt to their environment for success and survival [1, 9, 18, 33]. These dynamics lead to complexity and uncertainty about the future [27]. Respectively, changes in an PROBLEMY EKSPLOATACJI – MAINTENANCE PROBLEMS 3-2010 58 organization’s environment need to be identified, monitored, and assessed in order to reduce this uncertainty [4, 15]. Finally, the gained insights have to be used to respond accordingly to the environmental change [37]. While potential threats coming from such changes could be turned into opportunities [2], many companies fail to do so due to a lack of foresight capabilities [7, 11]. Companies have always had ways to watch moves of competitors and were seeking opportunities from new technological developments. However, these efforts often were not coordinated [15] and the usage for strategic decision making has been low [23]. Driven by the ever growing complexity coming from dynamic environments, recently more and more companies show interest in practices of corporate foresight [13, 34]. Methods and tools of corporate foresight can support the identification and assessment of environmental changes as well as the utilization of gained insights [32]. 2. Establishing corporate foresight When introducing foresight activities on the corporate level, as a first step a company should define who will be the user of results, what are the information needs of this user and what are the areas where information has to be searched [3, 5, 10, 22, 29]. Depending on these factors different approaches should be used in the foresight process itself, which consists of three major steps: (1) collection of information, (2) interpretation, and (3) utilization [5, 12, 20, 30]. Information can be collected by scanning the environment (competitors, customers, science, etc.), internal resources and external networks. The collected data is given meaning in the step of interpretation by analyzing and assessing new technologies, new products and services, and by anticipating consumer needs. In the utilization phase finally a response to the gained insights is made, e.g. by launching new projects, developing new business fields, sourcing know-how, or making strategic decisions on activities and budget allocation (Fig. 1). While a structured foresight approach is believed to have a positive impact on making the right decisions, there is no one-fits-all solution for designing such an approach. Choosing appropriate processes, organizational structures, and methods and tools depends on the context an organization is in, including size of the company, industry, complexity of environment, corporate culture, strategy, and source of competitive advantage (Table 1). Moreover, the financial resources of a company will have an influence on their foresight approach. Foresight activities can be costly and their budget has to be justified [14, 36]. Limited resources are the main concern of SMEs, when designing and implementing such activities [35]. This does not imply that only wealthy multinational companies could afford foresight. Rather, every company should design their foresight capabilities according to their context. 3-2010 PROBLEMY EKSPLOATACJI – MAINTENANCE PROBLEMS 59 Table 1. Context factors Context criteria Description Company size Company size by revenues and number of employees; a company of large size will rather need high efforts in foresight, in order to initiate change despite complex internal structures. Nature of strategy The generic strategy, which can be differentiation, cost leadership, or focussing on a niche; while focusing on a niche market or cost leadership (through copying existing products and services) will only require medium foresight efforts, a differentiation strategy will require high efforts in scanning for disruptive technologies, products and services, and business models. Corporate culture The degree of empowering individual initiative and reaching attention of top management quickly; a high such degree would lead to faster reactions to environmental change. Source of competitive advantage The driver of success, which can be either technology or customer orientation; technology-oriented companies should focus foresight on competition, customers, and politics; companies whose sources are both customers and technology should focus their efforts on the use of methods integrating those perspectives. Complexity of environment Complexity coming from the number of interdependencies to be monitored and considered; a high complexity, e.g. from dependency on regulation, technologies, public funding, or global economy, increases uncertainty and thus requires higher efforts in foresight. Industry clockspeed Rate of introduction of new products, processes, and organizational structures; a high clockspeed increases uncertainty and thus requires higher efforts in foresight. Source: Rohrbeck et. al. 2010. While the context of an organization determines its needed efforts in foresight, these efforts can be undertaken in certain areas. For a benchmarking study comparing the foresight capabilities among multinational companies from different industries, five factors have been chosen which are believed to having an impact on the success of foresight (Table 2). Depending on a company’s context, information coming from the company’s environment (competition, customers, technology, and politics) including current business, adjacent business and white spots should be identified and used. Sophisticated methods can support both, the collection of information as well as its interpretation. An own bibliographic analysis revealed that most literature related to foresight is addressing methods (Table 3). PROBLEMY EKSPLOATACJI – MAINTENANCE PROBLEMS 3-2010 60 Table 2. Success factors of foresight Success factor Description Information Usage Where and how do companies search for futureoriented information? Method Sophistication Which methods are applied for anticipation of future developments and how do companies choose these methods? People & Networks What are characteristics of foresighters and how are insights from foresight disseminated und used within companies? Organization How and where within companies are foresight activities started and how are these activities linked to other organizational units? Culture How supportive is the corporate culture towards foresight activities? Source: Rohrbeck et. al. 2009. Table 3. Frequency of discussed foresight methods in identified articles Method Micro level Macro level Micro & Macro level