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Reports
Optimizing products, technologies, and competences Most firms now accept that successful innovation is a major source of value. However, as technologies and competitors come and go at a dizzying pace, companies struggle to find ways to differentiate themselves to maximize that value. Though incentives to pour more money into R&D are on the rise, the effectiveness of a company's R&D efforts can be more important than the volume of R&D spending. Companies that pursue technological innovation can find themselves with brilliant ideas in pursuit of an application. The biggest pitfalls are an insufficient focus on competitive strengths, inconsistent approaches to innovation management, innovations in the absence of commercial demand, and attempts to get by with fast-follower strategies. The key to effective innovation is to have a consistent process that invites creativity at every level of the organization while keeping everybody's eyes on the company's strategic focus, profitability, and competitiveness. The rewards for skillfully shepherding creativity in this way are potentially enormous. The best innovators find ways simultaneously to reduce costs and achieve premium prices, creating supervalue. This report describes a framework that will allow your company to harness innovation to those ends. Author: Joseph E. Rudzinski. Executive Contacts and Report Recipients will receive this document automatically. Insights
In February 2002, SRI Consulting Business Intelligence sponsored a roundtable discussion by leading industry experts about prospects for the cluster of technologies and applications that make up the field of pervasive computing. Though participants are optimistic about the future of pervasive computing, the group spent much of its time talking about the significant barriers that this constellation of technologies must overcome before it sees widespread commercial application. Pervasive computing is the convergence of information technologies into a networked computing environment that is always on, always available, and unobtrusive. It is more than ubiquitous computers: Computers must interoperate and interact with people in an unobtrusive manner. True pervasive computing marks a paradigm shift in computing, changing the focus of computing from machines on desktops to human-centered computing in which computing tasks fade into the background. The value proposition for pervasive computing in the consumer market will be either convenience or the facilitation of continuous communication—being in constant touch with friends and peers. The value proposition for pervasive computing in business, in contrast, will be productivity and efficiency. Both markets are worth watching, but the business environment is the one most likely to sponsor rapid development of the various technologies and conventions necessary for pervasive computing. Though most efforts will be pervasive within particular companies, locales, or industries only, they will bring significant efficiencies and cost savings. Such quasi–pervasive-computing environments will significantly increase competitive advantage for the companies that explore and implement the technologies judiciously. Author: Carolyn E. Sleeth. 13 pages. Index Keywords: Computer Networks; Information Management; Information Technology; Productivity; Technology Trends.
Eager to duplicate the success of venture capitalists (VCs) during the Internet bubble, a number of companies established corporate-venturing units to invest in promising start-ups. Short-term financial success quickly turned to huge monetary losses following the 2001 downturn in the economy. Corporate-venturing activity declined some 70 percent between the third quarter of 2000 and the same quarter one year later. Companies that started venture units in the mid-1990s and closed their units by 2001 included successful Fortune 500 firms such as AT&T, Compaq, and News Corporation. As a result, the days of patterning corporate venture capital after private-VC methods are gone. The once-popular emphasis on rapid return on investment faded with the dot-com bubble. As businesses increasingly focus on their core competences in the wake of the 2001 economic downturn, corporate-venturing units must transform themselves to deal with the realities of the post–Internet boom economy. By examining the tensions among private VCs, corporate-venturing units, and start-ups, this study offers strategies to help firms use corporate venturing for strategic advantage. Author: Miguel de Figueiredo. 8 pages. Index Keywords: Corporate Finance; Information Management; Innovation; Joint Ventures; Risk Management; Technology Trends.
A wide variety of new devices, needs, and technologies in the consumer-electronics marketplace are transforming the market for electronic-storage from a commodity market to a market that can play an important strategic role for consumer-product developers and marketers. This study takes the unusual approach of examining the prospects for new and traditional storage technologies in a framework based on end-user devices rather than on a categorization of the technologies themselves. The approach assures that consumer demand, the primary driver for the consumer-electronics industry, figures prominently in the analysis. The study examines the potential role of hard-disk, optical-disc, and silicon storage technologies for a variety of consumer products, including personal computers, handheld computers and personal digital assistants, home entertainment components, and personal/portable consumer devices such as music players and digital cameras. The study concludes with a brief commentary integrating storage decisions into a new brand of management: managing innovation. This final section highlights margin trends in consumer-oriented electronic/information products and speaks to the difficult process of making future technology decisions in this arena. Author: Gregory Neichin. 33 pages. Index Keywords: Computer Hardware; Consumer Electronics; Information Technology.
The mobile communications business is going through a period of substantial change, with the emergence of a number of global operators whose reach extends well beyond their original national borders. These operators are needing to come to terms with managing the change from running a series of dispersed national operations (a multilocal organization) to developing a truly global organization that leverages economies of scale and yet caters to local needs and cultural differences. The authors describe how this process of globalization is proceeding and the priorities in terms of rolling out global brands and developing common core service offerings across the group. The study describes how operators would like to roll out many more common network interfaces (such interfaces allow applications to "talk" to the network) that would allow much easier transfer of applications, but that cost and time inhibitors mean that only limited standardization is in place. Operators and their systems integrators are developing middleware solutions as a transitional step. To cope with the dramatic change from developing and deploying the voice-centric services of old to a new era of mobile data services, the authors find much greater use of third parties, both as application developers and systems integrators and to provide ongoing support services. However, at the same time, operators are seeking to leverage the expertise in legacy network groups through the creation of competence centers. The authors highlight the variety of emerging approaches to service development and deployment and the implications for companies in the value chain. Authors: Dave Alker, Rob Edmonds, Martin Schwirn, Robert Thomas. 29 pages. Index Keywords: Communications; Global Operations; Mobile Communications; Product Development; Strategic Planning; Telecommunications. Scan
In scientific research, continuous-monitoring processes sometimes discover "transient objects" that the researchers weren't looking for but that lead to new insights and discoveries. In the world of business, advances in sensor, wireless, and computing technologies are creating opportunities for companies to implement continuous-monitoring systems to enhance industrial, manufacturing, and retail processes and to understand R&D efforts, product performance, and customer satisfaction better. In addition to improving the efficiency of traditional business processes, continuous monitoring will likely produce surprises as previously unknown dimensions of process dynamics come to light thanks to constant surveillance. The business world stands to reap substantial rewards by stepping away from the tight schedule and narrow focus of its current data-collection and -analysis processes and broadening its perspective to include the unexpected. News The summaries below describe current activities and programs not included in the B-I-P membership but of potential interest to members. New MacroMonitor Marketing Report Shifts in demographics, lifestyles, and financial attitudes make it necessary for financial institutions periodically to reassess who their best customers are. Customer reevaluation is even more critical when serving millionaire clients in today's volatile and uncertain economic environment. The Millionaire Market: Wealth Management in Transition offers some useful insights that can help financial institutions meet the needs of today's and the next generation's millionaires. For more information about the MacroMonitor, telephone: +1 609 734 2048; e-mail: info@sric-bi.com. New Report from Learning on Demand The eLearning-content marketplace is shifting dramatically, with important implications for eLearning users and the vendors of eLearning content. The Changing eLearning-Content Marketplace: Implications for Buyers and Vendors aims to explain recent developments in eLearning content and to frame an outlook for the future. It touches on the changing landscape of the eLearning-content industry, evolving models of pricing, and the outlook for the future. For more information about Learning on Demand, telephone: +1 650 859 4600; e-mail: info@sric-bi.com. New to Explorer The Pervasive Computing Technology Map, Explorer's newest addition, evaluates business opportunities that will arise from the convergence of information technologies into a networked computing environment that is always on, available, and unobtrusive. Pervasive computing marks a paradigm shift in computing, changing the focus of computing from machines on desktops to human-centered computing in which computing tasks fade into the background. The Technology Map investigates the emerging trend toward mobile, casually accessible computers and discusses pervasive computing's technological and commercialization path. For more information about Explorer, telephone: +1 650 859 4600; e-mail: info@sric-bi.com. Current Watch-List B-I-P's scanning and research processes identify areas on the periphery of your business's focus area that constitute potential opportunities or threats. The areas that we decide bear watching go on B-I-P's watch list of defining forces that are transforming the business environment. Current watch-list topics include:
The Bulletin will periodically highlight each defining force, listing related B-I-P publications. |
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