Managers and consultants use a wide range of tools and techniques to support strategic decision-making and action in increasingly complex, competitive and dynamic business environments. The impact of new technologies and shortened innovation cycles place a greater demand on managers to make effective and timely decisions, supported by good quality market, competitive and technology intelligence. Such decisions typically require input from multiple functions and disciplines, and benefit from processes that support consensus. Management tools and approaches are needed to support such decisions.
Technology roadmapping (TRM) is recognized as an effective and comprehensive tool for mapping “new” and “emerging science” industries, which is widely used in the industry to support strategic and long-term plan. TRM is also widely applied at both the firm and sector levels to support innovation, strategy, and policy development as well as deployment.
TRM is a dynamic set of technical, policy, legal, financial, market and organisational requirements identified by all stakeholders involved in its development.
It provides a graphical means for exploring and communicating the relationships among markets, products, and technologies over time, linking the business strategy to the evolution of the product features. What is notable in the technology roadmap is to provide the dual perspectives, ranging between the two extremes of technology push (divergent and looking for opportunities) and market pull (aiming for customer defined product). Therefore, it encompasses both commercial and technological perspectives.
In particular, TRM includes product planning, service/capability planning, strategic planning, long range planning, knowledge asset planning, program planning, process planning, and integration planning.