Is a technology roadmap a destination or the start of the journey?
Peter Allen, co-founder of nu Angle argues that roadmapping is a tool that can be used to develop robust investment strategies. It can be structured to support ‘challenge-led’ innovation and to direct ‘open innovation’ programs, as well as identifying opportunities for new IP.
Technology roadmapping is gaining a huge amount of interest amongst the many companies who are looking to invest for growth. Recent economic conditions have led to greater caution and stimulated a desire to invest and develop new revenues by organic innovation, rather than top-line growth via acquisition.
Many methods for building roadmaps leverage internal knowledge to build timeline pictures and the roadmap is seen as the output of the work. We believe that greater value can be achieved by connecting the scope of the roadmap directly to the commercial needs of the business – making it less about ‘technology push’ and more about business growth. This can be achieved by:
- Utilizing external subject matter experts to help build a roadmap that goes beyond boundaries set by internal knowledge
- Building a roadmap that can then be applied to the future strategic direction of a business – i.e. using the knowledge to create commercial advantage, with the roadmap as a ‘means to an end’
- Incorporating IP analysis into the roadmap to support sustainable innovation
- Translating the analysis into action plans that can then be assessed by a company’s leadership team – enabling informed investment choices
Click here to read nu Angle’s white paper ‘Creating roadmaps for growth’