Research Technology Management

Cultural Differences Drive Innovation, Conference Hears

The global economic downturn will accelerate the emergence of new forms of innovation, according to speakers at the Financial Times innovation conference held in London last November. They'll be driven by new attitudes toward collaboration among "digital natives, " young adults who have grown up with ubiquitous communications. The top 15% of companies will continue to innovate, and the top 5% will actually successfully accelerate their innovation initiatives, predicted Mark Turrell, CEO of Im...

Australia's R&D Landscape Changing

Globalization will continue to impact the nature of R&D conducted in Australian industrial laboratories, with increasing levels of work being undertaken by globally distributed technology groups, working multi-nationally. So concluded 65 senior managers from industry, universities and government who examined the future for Australian R&D and innovation at the Australasian Industrial Research Group's ( "AIRG" ) 2008 winter conference, held in Canberra last August. In this environment, ...

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News Briefs

Managing Global R&D Operations-Lessons From the Trenches

Globalized R&D operations require far more than an offshore R&D center or a partnership with a low-cost country service provider. Early questions around "Why globalize?" have been replaced by "How do I optimize global operations?" Industry leaders recognize that global R&D success begins with strategic choices around the global R&D footprint and includes people management structures that accommodate cultural and behavioral differences with effective communication channels. Ope...

Creating a Winning R&D Culture-Ii

This is the second of two articles describing how a new approach to selecting, training and coaching people helped to improve the effectiveness of new business development at the Dow Chemical Company. Part I explained how key aspects of the approach, called Speed, delivered over $23 billion in cumulative value between 1991 and 2008 from the company's formerly commoditized Polyolefins and Elastomers (PO&E) business. Part II describes the implementation of Speed more broadly in Dow between ...

Technological Innovation in the Bric Economies

Despite the tremendous economic potential of the Brazilian, Russian, Indian, and Chinese (BRIC) economies, few studies have compared technological innovation in these countries. This study investigates three main issues related to technological innovation in BRICs: 1) indicators of technological innovation were evaluated and used to compare capability of technological innovation between the four countries; 2) differences in innovative configurations were mapped based on constructs of "fundame...

Design-Oriented New Product Development

There are two approaches to reflecting a customer's point of view in new product development (NPD). One is a customer-following approach that utilizes expressed consumer needs. The other is a customer-leading approach that focuses on consumers' latent needs. Currently, the number of customer-leading approaches is increasing rapidly through design-oriented NPD. This case study of LG Electronics' Chocolate Phone reveals a market-oriented frame of mind. From a design point of view, it is importa...

How Companies Are Reinventing Their Idea-to-Launch Methodologies

The Stage-Gate® system introduced in the mid-1980s has helped many firms drive new products to market. But leaders have adjusted and modified the original model considerably and built in many new best practices. They have made the system more flexible, adaptive and scalable; they have built in better governance; integrated it with portfolio management; incorporated accountability and continuous improvement; automated the system; bolted on a proactive front-end or discovery stage; and finally,...

Perspectives

Automakers Hope 'Coopetition' Will Map Route to Future Sales

If the American automobile industry has a ray of hope in these difficult economic times, it is the promise of new technology pursued by the FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership. This seven-year-old collaboration among national laboratories, the Big (now Detroit) Three American carmakers, energy companies, and utilities has been undertaking high-risk R&D that is too expensive for individual companies to fund. The hope is that it leads to future cars with greatly improved performance, energy usa...

The Human Side

Needed: Managers Who Are Leaders

In a time of economic upheaval, threats to life from weapons of mass destruction and environmental damage, and urgent needs to provide affordable quality health and education for all, people look to the world of research and technology for innovative solutions. That's a huge challenge but also a great opportunity for the research/technology community. However, it won't be achieved by business as usual. Great results call for exceptional leadership. Here are three reasons why: 1. Inventors are...

Innovation For Innovators

Supercomputing On Your Desktop

Ray Kurzweil has garnered a great deal of attention by exploring the future path of computer technologies. His books use past trends and current information to predict what the world will be like 10, 20 and 100 years from now. His analysis is so in-depth and his reasoning so persuasive that his ideas are treated as models of the future rather than optimistic speculation. With every improvement in computer hardware, computer software companies immediately begin to search for ways to exploit th...