Marketing strategy is an organization's promotional efforts to allocate its resources across a wide range of platforms, channels to increase its sales and achieve sustainable competitive advantage within its corresponding market.
Futures studies, futures research, futurism, or futurology is the systematic, interdisciplinary and holistic study of social/technological advancement, and other environmental trends; often for the purpose of exploring how people will live and work in the future. Predictive techniques, such as forecasting, can be applied, but contemporary futures studies scholars emphasize the importance of systematically exploring alternatives. In general, it can be considered as a branch of the social sciences and an extension to the field of history. Futures studies seeks to understand what is likely to continue and what could plausibly change. Part of the discipline thus seeks a systematic and pattern-based understanding of past and present, and to explore the possibility of future events and trends.
A technology roadmap is a flexible planning schedule to support strategic and long-range planning, by matching short-term and long-term goals with specific technology solutions. It is a plan that applies to a new product or process and may include using technology forecasting or technology scouting to identify suitable emerging technologies. It is a known technique to help manage the fuzzy front-end of innovation. It is also expected that roadmapping techniques may help companies to survive in turbulent environments and help them to plan in a more holistic way to include non-financial goals and drive towards a more sustainable development. Here roadmaps can be combined with other corporate foresight methods to facilitate systemic change.
Strategic foresight is a planning-oriented discipline related to futures studies. In a business context, a more action-oriented approach has become well known as corporate foresight.
In futurology, especially in Europe, the term foresight has become widely used to describe activities such as:
Open innovation is a term used to promote an information age mindset toward innovation that runs counter to the secrecy and silo mentality of traditional corporate research labs. The benefits and driving forces behind increased openness have been noted and discussed as far back as the 1960s, especially as it pertains to interfirm cooperation in R&D. Use of the term 'open innovation' in reference to the increasing embrace of external cooperation in a complex world has been promoted in particular by Henry Chesbrough, adjunct professor and faculty director of the Center for Open Innovation of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, and Maire Tecnimont Chair of Open Innovation at Luiss.
Technology forecasting attempts to predict the future characteristics of useful technological machines, procedures or techniques. Researchers create technology forecasts based on past experience and current technological developments. Like other forecasts, technology forecasting can be helpful for both public and private organizations to make smart decisions. By analyzing future opportunities and threats, the forecaster can improve decisions in order to achieve maximum benefits. Today, most countries are experiencing huge social and economic changes, which heavily rely on technology development. By analyzing these changes, government and economic institutions could make plans for future developments. However, not all of historical data can be used for technology forecasting, forecasters also need to adopt advanced technology and quantitative modeling from experts’ researches and conclusions.
Game Description Language (GDL), an innovation in the field of artificial intelligence, represents a significant step forward in the quest to create versatile game-playing AI agents. Designed by Michael Genesereth, GDL is a specialized logic programming language that finds its home within the ambitious realm of the General Game Playing Project at Stanford University. This project aims to develop AI agents capable of playing a wide variety of games without the need for game-specific programming.
In organizational theory, dynamic capability is the capability of an organization to purposefully adapt an organization's resource base. The concept was defined by David Teece, Gary Pisano and Amy Shuen, in their 1997 paper Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management, as the firm’s ability to engage in adapting, integrating, and reconfiguring internal and external organizational skills, resources, and functional competences to match the requirements of a changing environment.
Technology Intelligence (TI) is an activity that enables companies to identify the technological opportunities and threats that could affect the future growth and survival of their business. It aims to capture and disseminate the technological information needed for strategic planning and decision making. As technology life cycles shorten and business become more globalized having effective TI capabilities is becoming increasingly important.
Corporate foresight has been conceptualised by strategic foresight practitioners and academics working and/or studying corporations as a set of practices, a set of capabilities and an ability of a firm. It enables firms to detect discontinuous change early, interpret its consequences for the firm, and inform future courses of action to ensure the long-term survival and success of the company.
Alfred Allen Marcus is an American author and the Edson Spencer Professor of Strategy and Technology Leadership at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota and the Technological Leadership Institute. He has worked as a consultant with companies such as 3M, Corning Inc., Xcel Energy, Medtronic, General Mills, and IBM and has also taught as a visiting professor at Technion, INCAE, BI Norwegian Business School, Fordham University, and MIT.
Product analysis involves examining product features, costs, availability, quality, appearance and other aspects. Product analysis is conducted by potential buyers, by product managers attempting to understand competitors and by third party reviewers.
Tech mining or technology mining refers to applying text mining methods to technical documents. For patent analysis purposes, it is named ‘patent mining’. Porter, as one of the pioneers in technology mining, defined ‘tech mining’ in his book as follows: “the application of text mining tools to science and technology information, informed by understanding of technological innovation processes.” Therefore, tech mining has two significant characteristics: 1) using ‘text mining tools’, 2) applying these tools to ‘technology management’. Also, technology mining can be considered as one of technology intelligence branches.
The Integrated Management Concept, or IMC is an approach to structure management challenges by applying a "system-theoretical perspective that sees organisations as complex systems consisting of sub-systems, interrelations, and functions". The most characteristic aspect of the IMC is its distinction between three particular management dimensions: normative, strategic, and operational management, which are held together by different integration mechanisms. The normative management dimension determines the general aim of the organization, the strategic dimension directs the plans, basic structures, systems, and the problem-solving behaviour of the staff for achieving it, and the operative level translates the normative missions and strategic programs into day-to-day organizational processes.
Sofia Börjesson is a Swedish Professor (chair) in Technology Management Department at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg Sweden. Her academic research field evolves around questions of how large, mature organizations change and develop, with focus on the management of innovation work. She works on applying innovation as an organizational transformation and in particular in a context of business model innovation. She applies qualitative methods, often collaborative research methods, cooperating with industrial partners with the intent to create actionable knowledge. She has published her work in journals such as R&D Management, Journal of Change Management, Int. J. Operations and Production Management, Technovation and Creativity and Innovation Management.
The Trend Receiver Concept is a method for developing Customer Foresight and has been overall identified as an approach to develop foresight. At the core of the Trend Receiver Concept is the identification of suitable conversation partners, so called Trend Receivers, when developing foresight on the future demands and habits of consumers.
Horizon scanning (HS) or horizon scan is a method from futures studies, sometimes regarded as a part of foresight. It is the early detection and assessment of emerging technologies or threats for mainly policy makers in a domain of choice. Such domains include agriculture, environmental studies, health care, biosecurity, and food safety.
In business administration, desorptive capacity has been defined as "an organization’s ability to identify technology transfer opportunities based on a firm’s outward technology transfer strategy and to facilitate the technology’s application at the recipient". It is considered as a complement to absorptive capacity, and it may be a driver of a successful knowledge transfer.
Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) is a collective term from futures studies for analyzing future technology and its consequences. It includes technology intelligence, technology forecasting, technology roadmapping, technology assessment, and technology foresight. Technology Futures Analysis or Technology Future Analysis (TFA) is a synonym.
