TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT AND
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
MODULE -2
MANAGING RESEARCH AND DVELOPMENT
The first topic is research and development (R&D):Examining new product strategies,organization for research, and the sequential
process of winnowing the many ideas for product research and development to an affordable level, according to technical market,
and organizational considerations.
Next follows a contributed section on the important topic of protecting ideas through patents, trade secrets, and other means. Finally,
creativity, which is essential to effective research, is considered carefully.
Important questions.
1.Explain product and technology life cycles.
2.Describe the legal means to protect a person’s ideas. (patent,trade secrets,copyrights)
3.Discuss the nature of creativity.
What is product life cycle?what are the steps involved in the project planning and research.(8 M)
A new product begins as an idea for the solution of a problem or the satisfaction of a need. In nature only a few out of a
hundred tadpoles survive to become frogs; in research only a few out of many research ideas will be vigorous enough to
survive and will reach the right environment to mature into a successful product. Like the buggy whip, our product will have its
day and will then be replaced by newer ideas that satisfy newer needs. This cradle-to-grave sequence is known as the product
life cycle.
Steps involved in the project planning and research are:
1.Identification of needs(consumer)
Producer:
2.Product planning function
3.Product research function
4.Product design function
5.Product evaluation function
6.Production and/or construction function
7.Product use and logistic support function
Explain the technology life cycle with a graph.(5 M)
For a product line (or family of products) based on a technology that is developed and improved over a period of years of
product manufacture, the model of the technology life cycle portrayed by Betz.
The first technological phase of the industry will be one of rapid development of the new technology—technology
development. For the automobile this lasted from 1896 to 1902, as experiments in steam-, electric-, and gasoline-engine-
powered vehicles were tried... .
In any new technology, the early new products are created in a wild variety of configurations and with differing
features....Finally, when enough experimentation has occurred to map out the general boundaries of possibilities of the
product line, some managerial genius usually puts all the best features together in one design and creates the model which
then becomes the standard design for the industry.
Thereafter all product models generally follow the standard design. This makes possible large market volume growth. For the
automobile, this occurred [in 1908] with Ford’s Model T design. After the applications launch, there occurs a rapid growth in
the penetration of technology into markets (or in creating new markets). After some time, however, the innovation rate slows
and market creation will peak. This is the phase of technology maturity. Finally,. ..when competing or substituting
technologies emerge, the mature technology begins to degrade in competition with the competing technologies .
GRAPH:
Nature of Research and Development.
Define basic and applied research development.(2 m)
Research, both basic and applied, is systematic, intensive study directed toward fuller scientific
knowledge of the subject studied.
Basic research is...research devoted to achieving a fuller knowledge or understanding, rather than a
practical application, of the subject under study...[although when funded by commercial firms, it] may
be in fields of present or potential interest to the company.
Applied research is directed toward the practical application of knowledge, which for industry means the
discovery of new scientific knowledge that has specific commercial objectives with respect to either
products or processes.
Development is the systematic use of scientific knowledge directed toward the production of useful
materials, devices, systems, or methods, including design and development of prototypes and processes.
Research Strategy and Organization.
New Product Strategies:
First-to-market:This...demands major expenditures for research before there is any guarantee of a
successful product. It also demands heavy development expenditures and perhaps a large marketing
effort to introduce an innovative product. The possibilities of reward from the R&D, however, are
tremendous.
Follow-the-leader:This strategy does not require a massive research effort, but it demands strong
development engineering. As soon as a competitor is found to have had research success that could
lead to a product, the firm playing follow-the-leader joins the race and tries to introduce a product to
market almost as soon as the innovator.
Me-too: A me-too strategy differs from follow-the-leader in that there is no research or development. In
its purest form this strategy means copying designs from others, buying or leasing the necessary
technology, and then concentrating on being the absolute minimum-cost producer. The firm following
this strategy will try to maintain the lowest possible overhead expenses.
Application engineering. This role involves taking an established product and producing it in forms particularly well
suited to customers’ needs. It requires no research and little development, but a good deal of understanding of
customers’ needs and flexibility in production.
Corporate Research Organizations:
recently identified three ways a corporate research laboratory could fail:
Many research laboratories have been opened with great fanfare, only to fail later because they had the idea that producing great
science, whether or not it had anything to do with the business, was why they were there. There is a role for the production of
good science—provided you can eventually make it relevant to the business. But if a laboratory goes for a long period of time
doing nothing relevant to the business, then it probably deserves to fail, because a corporation is not a university.
The second reason laboratories fail is because of what can best be described as rampant shorttermism. Financial support for
business seems to come increasingly from markets and groups who regard two and a half weeks as an eternity and a quarter
[year] as the age of the universe. So, sometimes research and development fail because nobody has enough patience to let
them succeed.
The third way in which research efforts fail is that the connection between research and development and the business breaks down.
What is done in the research and development laboratories may be applicable to the business. The business may need these useful
developments. But somehow the developments never get out of the laboratory and into the business. This is a failure of technology
transfer.
Central corporate laboratories also make their special expertise available to the business units to solve current problems, but they must
be careful that this does not cripple their basic function.
THANK
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