Master of Business Administration - Semester 4

OM0018 – Technology Management

Assignment

Set 1

Q1. Define the term technology. Write a short note on evolution

and growth of technology.

Technology refers to knowledge, processes or products of technological

activities, according to the context in which it is used, and the term

management refers to the act of getting people together to achieve a

specific goal.

Technology is derived from the greek word “technologia”in which

“techne” means craft and “logia” means saying

The history of technology dates back to the time when humans were able

to prepare some simple tools with easily available natural resources.

History indicates that the advancement in technology had a major leap

with the invention of the wheel. From the invention of the wheel, much

usage of the technology has started. The technology in all the fields has

gtown to larger extent and now we can see the technology involved in

almost all the things we use in our daily life.

Evolution and Growth of Technology

In the previous section, we learnt about the concept and meaning of

technology. Now, we willdiscuss about the evolution of technology, before

going to the other topics about technology. The history of technology

dates back to the time when humans were able to prepare some simple

tools with easily available natural resources. History indicates that the

advancement in technology had a major leap with the invention of the

wheel. From the invention of the wheel, much usage of the technology has

started. The technology in all the fields has grown to a larger extent and

now we cansee the technology involved in almost all the things we use in

our daily life.We know that there are some advanced technologies at

present which include the printing press,telephone and Internet which

have helped us to communicate all over the globe.Till now we have mainly

concentrated on technology management in general. Now let us

learnabout technology management in India.

Technology management in India

The Government of India is mainly focussing on the development of

science and technology in thepresent world. The Indian industries are

operating under the controlled and regulated economy.The technology

management is generally lacking at the enterprise level except a few

enterprises.There are many Indian companies which are able to develop

and produce the internationallycompetitive products. The companies

which use different kinds of technologies, and are excellingtoday, in India

are the Punjab tractors, tata automobiles, amul food and certain drug and

chemicalindustries. In the same way, there are many Research and

Development (R&D) institutions which have developed and

commercialised the technologies in the areas of drugs, chemicals,

foodtechnology, and computer software.The productivity of the Indian

industries largely depends on the technologies that are imported.Most of

the technologies that are used in the Indian industries are cost effective .

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Q2. Citing an example, state and explain the reasons that compel

a company to go for the new technology.

The reasons which compel a company for obtaining a new technology.

The use of new technologies plays an important role in the industry.

Whenever a company wants to adapt the new technologies, it has to

make decisions related to the acquisition of the technology. The company

has to see the experience of its R&D for the actual need of acquiring the

knowledge.

technology becomes critical when the market lead time and competition is

more. The following explains the reasons that compel the company for

technology acquisition.

Technology acquisition helps to bridge the gap in technology, in the

developing countries like India. The fastest way of bridging the

technology gap is through collaborations. Acquiring the technology

from outside company is more costlier than acquiring technology

from the R&D of the same company. It will be better, if we develop

the new technologies from the in-house R&D. The dependence of

the company on the collaboration is bad and we should have the

self-reliance in the company every time

Technology acquisition depends on the policy environment.

Sometimes the economic policies do not allow the foreign countries

to sell their goods and services in the domestic market. In such

times, the foreign companies can get the financial returns only

through the collaboration and selling the raw materials and

components.

Technology acquisition is the process by which a company acquires

the rights to use and exploit a technology for the purpose of

improving or renewing processes, products or services. It does not

include retailed or mass market off the shelf software which is

generally governed by non-negotiable “shrink wrapped” licences.

Technology acquisition is mainly designed for business-to-business

technology acquisition. In few cases, technology comes from a

university or research organisation. The origin of the technology can

take place in any area but it has ton be tested, proven and ready to

use.

Technology acquisition helps for enhancing the productivity of an

organisation. The company planning for technology acquisition has

to make the agreement between the two companies and even the

details of the costs are also present as part of the application.

a randomly selected number added to or subtracted from the true

value every time the measurement is conducted.

Systematic change in the mean is a systematic change in the value

between two measures. This variation in the mean value is an important

issue when subjects perform a series of trials as part of a tracking the

program. The subjects are usually tracked to determine the effects of an

intervention (example, a change in diet or training), so it is important to

perform trials to make learning effects or other systematic changes

insignificant before applying the intervention.

Typical Error of Measurement

In the above example, the first few weights show a slight trend

downwards – it shows that the subjects lose a bit of weight, so there is a

random variation of about a kilogram. This random variation is the typical

error. It is quantified as the standard deviation in each subject’s

measurements between tests, after any shifts in the mean have been

taken into account. The variation/error is also known as the within-subject

standard deviation, or the standard error of measurement.

Coefficient of variation is an important form of typical error. This is the

typical error is expressed as a percentage of the subject’s mean score.

Another form of within-subject variation is reliability limits of agreement,

which represent the 95% likely range for the difference between a

subject’s scores in two tests4.

2. Retest Correlation

When the test and retest values are determined, it is obvious that the

closer the values are to the true value, the higher is the reliability.

Therefore, a retest correlation is one way to quantify reliability. A

correlation of 1.00 represents perfect agreement between tests, whereas

0.00 represents no agreement whatever. In our example the correlation is

0.95, which represents very high reliability.

Kappa Coefficient: Reliability of Nominal Variables

Reliability can also be defined for supposed variables, to represent the

constancy with which something is classified on several occasions. The

best measure is something called the kappa coefficient. It is equivalent to

a correlation coefficient and has the same range of values (-1 to +1).

3. Alpha Reliability

The alpha reliability of the variable is derived by assuming that each item

represents a retest of a single item. For example, if there are five items, it

is as though the five scores are the retest scores for one item. But

reliability is calculated such that it represents the reliability of the mean of

the items and not the reliability of any single item. Hence, the alpha

reliability of 10 items would be higher than that of 5 similar items.5

Alpha reliability is regarded as a measure of internal consistency of the

mean of the items at the time of supervision of the questionnaire. It refers

to the ability to reproduce the results whenever it is required. This is

essentially enhances faith in the statistical analysis and the results

obtained.

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Q3. Describe some characteristics of technology forecasting.

Explain in brief about the six phases in technology forecasting

process.

Characteristics of technology forecasting

Generally, there are some characteristics that are associated with

technology forecasting. We will now discuss them briefly.

A technological forecast relates to certain characteristics such as levels

of technical performance (e.g., technical specifications including energy

efficiency, emission levels, speed, power, safety, temperature, so on), rate

of technological advances (introduction of paperless office, picture phone,

new materials, costs, so on).

A technological forecast also relates to useful machines, procedures, or

techniques. In particular, this is intended to exclude the items intended for

pleasure or amusement from the domain of technological forecasting,

since they depend more on personal tastes rather than on technological

capability.

A technology forecast can be for short-term, medium-term, and long-

term.

The forecasting process

Twiss has suggested some general elements for the technology forecast

process.

The forecasting process involves three elements that are shown in the

figure

The Forecasting Process

As we can see in the figure, that there are three elements involved in the

forecasting process, we will discuss them briefly. The first element is the

input that has to be fed for the process. This involves the requirements

that we have to fed, so the decision-maker of the forecast will gather the

information like the assumptions and data, and feeds the information to

the second element named as ‘forecasting techniques’ which will process

depending on the output that it has to contain. Lastly the resources that

are required to define the forecast are identified.

According to our working definitions, the main function of the technology

is “to lead the decision making process towards profitable solutions with

minimum uncertainties.”

We can study technology forecasting in six phases, as given in the figure

Figure: The Components of Technological Forecasting Process

Let us now briefly explain these six phases.

Identification of needs: This is the first phase in technology forecasting

process. After identifying the expected outputs and the objectives of the

future, a thorough analysis is done in order to make sure the relevance of

technology forecasting. This phase ends with a decision of technology

forecast.

Prepare project: This is the second phase in technology forecasting

process. In this phase, the forecasting activities that are planned and

resources are allocated. The roles of each human resource are carefully

prepared and explained. There are three human resources, clients, core

tem and external participants. The client includes both customer and user

of technology forecast. The core team performs the activities like defining

references, writing documents, creating the structure of the forecast and

filling it. The core team co-ordinates the efforts of experts from team,

external participants and clients which help to develop an entire forecast.

The external participants help in providing data, information and

experience. The major sources of information and data are identified in

this phase.

Define objectives: This is the third phase in technology forecasting. This

phase once again goes through the objectives that are defined in the first

and second phases. This phase decides the dimensions of the forecast.

This includes both the normative and exploratory forecast. We use

normative forecast, when the desirable future is seen and the normative

forecast focus on finding the path, from the present to the desirable state.

Perform analysis and develop Technology Forecast (TF): This is the fourth

phase in the technology forecasting process. This is the central part of the

present research.

· In this phase, we start with defining the boundaries of the technological

system that has to be forecasted. This, in turn, involves definition of other

four steps that are clearly shown in the diagram. The four steps in defining

the boundaries include defining of the key functions and futures, defining

system in relation with the laws of system incompleteness and energy

conductivity, defining the system in terms of technological, social and

environmental contexts and lastly the analysis of the drivers and barriers

for the development of the system.

· After completing the definition of the boundaries, we get a shape of

problem and also the contradiction network. We have to capitalise this set

of problems. This also includes the four steps as shown in the above

figure. The first step in this, is reformulating the technological barriers into

the contradictions. The next step is, defining critical-to-X features, and

third step involves the revising and reformulating the collected

contradictions to match with the critical to X features. The last step in this

involves mapping of obtained contradictions as a network. The network

consists of critical-to-X features, components of system and opposite

values of features.

· The next step in the analysis and develop TF is the 'analysis of limitation

of resources'. This helps to find the resources that are less and causes

problems on the map. R&D helps to get the raw materials and solve the

problem. This also helps in determining the time delays of the activities.

· The next step in the analysis and develop TF involves; build the time

diagram'. This uses the results that we get after the problem mapping.

The different order of critical to X features is developed by considering the

different contexts.

Validate results: The fifth phase in the technology forecasting process is to

'validate results'. This includes the customer satisfaction with the results

of TF. There are different processes that are associated with the

evaluation of the results of the forecast. Our R&D uses the traditional

method of evaluating the result of forecast. We can do peer review with

the external experts and our colleagues in between working hours of the

forecast to make the evaluation easy.

Application of TF: The last phase in the technological forecast is the

'application of TF'. This depends mainly on the needs and the formulated

objectives. We have seen the developing of TRF using the contradiction

networking. This helps mainly in all the projects.

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Q4. Write a short note on technology strategy. Explain in brief

about the innovation management.

Technology Strategy

A strategy is a long term view that describes a high level framework. This

high level framework describes where the organisation needs to be in the

future years. 

We can define technology strategy as a planning document that explains

how technology should be utilised as part of an organisation's overall

business strategy. The document is usually created by an organisation’s

technology manager and should be designed to support the organisation's

overall business plan. Most of the organisations use technologies in

product and services’ generation, but all the organisations will not gain

the positive competitive advantage from the technologies. There are

many factors in competition, and technology is only one factor among

them. Yet, some firms effectively use technology as a competitive

advantage, and others do not. One important factor in the successful use

of technology is the role of general management in technology strategy.

In particular, it has been management's ability to foster corporate core

technical competencies. 

The central idea here is that a business can be developed around a long-

term, consistent focus on a core technological competency. What it

means, is to have a core corporate technical competency, to lead in both

innovating new-technology products and improving manufacturing quality

and lowering cost of these products. With this, not only products can be

improved, but also manufacturing process can be improved in future

generations of technology. 

The role of management in building competitive advantage for an

organization depends on the technology strategy. It is better to

understand the intended strategy of general management. We can see

that there are three aspects of relationship between the management and

technology strategy. 

These are: 

1. The view of management of the impact of general management on

the business and business strategy. 

2. The management checks whether there is any chance of discerning

the technology strategy. 

3. The management checks whether there is any chance of discerning

particular orientation towards new markets, developing superior

products and pursuing learning curve and cost leadership.

The managers play an important role in the decision making process of

the technology. The decision making process involves many problems in

sustaining and building competitive advantage. In the case of competitive

markets, technology intensity introduces the layer of complexity.

Innovation Management

We can define ‘innovation management’ as the systematic processes that

help the organisations in developing new and improved products, services

and business processes. This involves the use of creative ideas of an

organisation's employees that brings new innovations to the market place,

quickly and efficiently.

In business, innovation should not be only limited to the big ground

breaking ideas, creative workshops and product based companies.

Innovation is often small, incremental changes to products, services and

processes. The innovation involves all the managers from different

departments. This needs to be planned and managed as a core business

covering all parts of a business. This needs to be integrated at the

strategic and operational levels. The activities of the innovation need to

be driven by the strategy and current business imperatives.

The successful innovation culture consists of all the aspects of a business,

and these aspects have to be managed effectively and efficiently like any

other core business. 

Innovation can be built into business, at three levels. The three levels are

the annual business planning process, quarterly innovation and day-to-

day activities. 

Innovation is managed through some sort of platform or application.

There are two types of innovation tools that are, an electronic

suggestion scheme, and a management system controlling the

innovation process.

The management of the innovation system need to be given to the senior

management to control the overall system of innovation. The best

practices and tools are applied consistently and appropriately across the

organisation. Any platform should encourage for the learning activity as a

core feature. 

Installing the innovation culture in any of the company has leaders and

teams with ability and commitment. In order to create culture of

continuous innovation, the organisation requires leadership and

commitment from the senior management team. The management team

also sees that some staff members in the organisation are rewarded for

the innovative ideas they put in. The senior management needs to

encourage the innovative ideas from the staff.

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Q5. What is the importance of technology diffusion? What are the

benefits of technology absorption?

Technology Diffusion

The process of adopting the new technology by the customers who came

to know about the technology from other customers is called as the

technology diffusion. Diffusion involves special types of communication

methods or system to help diffuse changes in practice, as well as changes

in knowledge or attitudes. Thus, we can say that diffusion is the process of

closing the gap between what people do not know and what they can

effectively put to use.

Importance of technology diffusion

After defining the technology diffusion, now let us study about the

importance of technology diffusion.

Technology diffusion plays a major role in most of the countries today. The

barriers to technology diffusion help us to determine the magnitude of

technology diffusion. These barriers determine the volumes of diffusion.

Diffusion enlarges the set of available technologies and increases the

productivity of the country. In case of diffusion, productivity is determined

by the domestic technology in the production country and the diffusion

technology from other countries. The technology diffusion plays more

important role in the sector of goods that are not tradable, than the sector

with the tradable goods.

The free technology diffusion generates more gains compared to that of

the free merchandise trade. We can increase the merchandise trade by

removing the diffusion barriers since the countries achieve higher

productivity by taking the technology from the diffusion process.

A well-managed technology diffusion system enables an organization to

plan its technology development projects in a more meaningful manner as

well as transfer the technologies more successfully. Such an approach

results in better returns for the investments made in R&D and technology

development systems.

Benefits of technology absorption

Repeated collaborations for the same product/ process are avoided.

Acquisition of further technologies becomes selective.

Ability is developed to unpackage the technology.

Savings can be affected in foreign exchange due to indigenisation /use

of indigenous alternatives.

Effective utilisation is made of available indigenous research expertise

and facilities to achieve the desired results.

Know-why and technology upgradation capabilities are built-up.

Exports are increased.

Technically competent groups of scientists and engineers trained in

technology absorption get matured and strengthened.

The base for technological self-reliance is enhanced.

We gain the benefits of technology diffusion, ranging from R&D services to

the larger sales. Technology diffusion helps in sustaining the growth of the

company through technical strength. Many developing countries,

including India, have liberalised their industrial policies in the recent past.

In the wake of the liberalised nature of New Industrial Policy and other

policy measures in Trade and Finance, it has become imperative for

industry to accelerate its R&D efforts to meet the emerging competitive

environment.

While acquisition of technology is now easier, commensurate R&D efforts

will simultaneously be needed to absorb and upgrade the acquired

technology in order to become internationally competitive. The thrust as

underlined below need to be ensured for effective implementation,

absorption and upgradation of imported technology.

Industry should attempt to obtain best available technology closest to

international trends and provide R&D at the stage of project planning.

Speedy indigenisation of raw materials and components.

Efforts for unpackaging and indigenisation of tailor-made equipment in

the acquired technology.

Enhancing exports of products based on absorbed and upgraded

technology.

Continuous training of research personnel in India and abroad.

Use of national and international research facilities and expertise.

Involving users, suppliers of components and materials, research

organisations in undertaking absorption exercises.

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Q6. Explain the implementation of new technology. Briefly

describe the automation decisions.

Implementation of New Technology

Sound planning is essential for the success of any technology’s

implementation. The failures that are likely to arise during the

implementation process may be due to the poor planning or inadequate

resources. Valuing the conflicts will facilitate the organisation to keep

away from these problems, and for the management, to anticipate the

likely trouble spots and ease it accordingly.

You must keep in mind some vital preliminary considerations.

These considerations are:

· Initial considerations: The management of the business needs to

understand that the new system alone cannot find solutions to all the

problems experience by the organisation. The whole implementation

process involves the complete business process and/or academic practice,

consumer services, communication with suppliers and a relationship

among all other engrossed stakeholders.

There are a number of less-substantial activities, which are critical and

people those are involved must:

Have an understanding of the organisation predominantly, in terms of

its traditions and principles are essential.

The underlying principle of any new system implementation should be

able to provide all the better services to all concerned through it.

This information has to be conversed to all concerned parties.

A complete review of every business processes and, where required,

academic practice, and developing and introducing new policies before

tuning the system to meet the decided requirements should be

undertaken.

The complete approval of the difficulty and flexibility of the system

should be determined.

The inbuilt dangers of customisation of any software should be

understood.

A thorough system test procedures should be conducted, while

accepting the likely need for software malfunction and improvements.

The training and development to be conducted for the internal staff

should be planned in advance.

The users must be trained, to use the system.

The users must be trained, to identify faults and correct freely.

The essential nature of system documents has to be accepted and

retain accordingly.

· Planning and implementation: A thorough plan with efficient

management is necessary for success, and to work against the fear of

high costs, extended time, losing key persons and common

disappointment with the result

· Go-Live Considerations: Finally, it is essential that the “go live” day

causes as tiny disturbance to the daily business, since it is practically

possible. The various issues arising at this point of time will negatively

affect the organisation’s status, sometimes irreversibly, with all

stakeholders.

Considerations for implementation

· Be aggressive: An important consideration when implementing a new

technology is to be aggressive to set up a strong competitive edge. The

competitive edge enhances production that may be related to the total

system performance and authorising employees. A competitive edge will

make the clients and customers more independent. For example, we can

think of an ATM machine that will make the customers convenient by

establishing it outside the bank. The competitive benefit may possibly

combine several functions, partners, or flow of data that will lead to a

effective business.

· Be cautious: If the new chosen technology provides revenue to your

business, then it is necessary to be careful while making any major

modifications in the new technology. Being cautious does not merely

mean that you should avoid the advancing technology. It conveys to be

more careful in understanding the consequences and secondary

applications which may perhaps be impacted as a result of a very small

change. If we consider examples, of some companies that had apparently

made changes to billing, failed to produce invoices or statements to the

clients.

The consequence formed economic poverty for the billing company, and

for the displeased customers, who abruptly received several months’

worth of amass billing once the accounting system problem was resolved.

In addition to the impact on cash flow, the relationships with the

customers become weak. Henceforth, you should be aggressive to

increase the competitive chances to grow the profit and performance of

your business. At the same time, you must be careful even while

implementing changes that may affect your core business contributions,

customers, or billing.

· Be quick: It is important for you to be quick enough to implement the

small changes to your chosen technology and to supervise their impact.

There should not be any delay, when it comes to performance

improvement, internal proposal for simplifying routines or improving

customer performance. We must follow a set of routines, to design small

changes, test changes and schedule to bring consistent enhancements. It

is pretty often, the minor improvements encompass the major impact to

business performance.

· Be slow: If major changes affect your business, it is vital to make the

implementation changes slowly. Normally, the centre design and functions

of the business are well-organised and updated. The processes that are

more frequently in use are likely to get the majority attention and seem to

be highly evolved. Basically, these processes are given the first priority,

when it comes to implementing a transfer in technology. On the other

side, you must avoid focusing on common ground, also conserve the

primary processes until the changes have been tested on some of the

more difficult and less used utilities. There will be remarkable information

to be achieved with the experience and less effect on business by

concentrating on most composite and least used functions.

· Be safe: During the implementation of a new technology, the better time

to address the potential security needs is at the time of design and

development. It is better to employ a security expert who will take care of

the privacy of the organisation. If you have customers, credit cards,

customer accounts, customer information, intellectual belongings,

monetary information, health information, or employee information stored

automatically, available on a network, or printed in files, then it is vital to

consider safety. Also, if you are planning to undergo a technology change,

it is the right time to reassess the associated documents by means of a

security or privacy specialist.

From this discussion, we can say the technology plays a significant role in

organisations worldwide accomplishment. A well-organised management

of people is crucial to the successful implementation and use of new

technical systems. The management should take the responsibility to

support the commitment to the new system. If the management supports

a new technology, the employees will be liable to assist with the

functioning. This proves to be right, while they understand that the

success and sometimes survival of the organisation along with their

potential security depends on the adapted new procedure.

Automation decisions

In general, we can say that automation decisions are the decisions that

are related to automation. The automation decision is considered most

suitable for coherent, evidently defined decision situations. The

automation decisions act like legal support systems that instantaneously

solve and offer solutions to the recurring organisation problems. They are

directly related to business informatics and business analytics. The

automated decisions are basically dependent on business rules. These

rules can be shaped or activated by business analytics. One of the

components of automation decision support is rules-engine.

For the purpose of operational decision making, a rules-engine is used.

The engine employs actionable analytics and business rules to make and

deliver adapted alert. In addition, it relates the business intelligence to

business users or to create and deliver action messages for processing by

operational applications. To handle a particular business situation, it

produces alerts and messages which might contain the announcement,

warnings and suggested solution to solve a problem.

A rule engine can also be invoked by a user in real time to assist in

business decisions, whether to fund a loan to the client or in providing

credit cards, or to calculate the risk occurred in a particular business

transaction. The current automation design decision systems are well

suited for the decisions that have to be made often and rapidly, by the

use of information that is available electronically. The chief consideration

is that the knowledge and decision criteria used in these systems have to

be highly structured. If specialists are capable of readily codifying the

decision rules, and if premium data are accessible, the conditions are

favourable for automating the decision.

The rule engines are implanted in a number of software products,

including web application servers, and business intelligence tools, where

they are sometimes called intelligent agents. The sophisticated stand

alone rule engines are building up and advertised by the vendors.

To fully exploit the advantage of the influence of a decision-making

system, the analytics, suggestions and actions has to be linked and

integrated with the overall business process. It can be achieved by means

of business process automation (BPA).Figure: An example for Automated

Decision Making

The upper portion of the figure illustrates an easy functioning workflow for

dealing out a customer order. This workflow is used so as to establish the

indications in the operational process, where business action desires to be

supervised by a BI system. Application and data events can then be

confined at these points and used to populate an Object Distribution

Server (ODS) or a data warehouse. The ODS acts like an objectified

information used by the clients to obtain and contribute knowledge. Event

capture can be accomplished directly in the application itself, in an

integration broker or at application and data interfaces like database API,

application API, EJB interface and user interface.

If an analytics workflow in a rules engine in the BI system discovers a

business condition that needs action, the business user possibly will be on

the alert and pass an action workflow to assist identification of the

problem and decide what action to take. If automation is necessary, the

action workflow possibly will be implanted in the rules engine, which

would produce the suitable action messages to be sent to the functioning

environment.

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Master of Business Administration - Semester 4

OM0018 – Technology Management

Assignment

Set 2

Q1.Explain Technology Generation. Explain Technology

Development. Discuss the importance Technology Generation and

Development.

Technology Generation

Technology generation and development is often identical with the term

"Research and Development (R&D)". However, technology generation

involves R&D efforts, while technology development involves further

stages of translating R&D efforts into marketable products, processes and

services. Basically, we can consider the R&D process as having four

distinct stages as shown in figure 1.

As per the figure 1, the recognition of a need for innovation is one of the

inspirations for R&D. A “Research" on existing knowledge for satisfying

identified need helps in idea generation-this is the” need push” which is

shown in the figure 1. The other primary motivation for R&D is to find

potential applications for advances in knowledge. “Research" on existing

activity for introducing new knowledge also helps in idea generation-this is

the “technology push” as shown in the figure 1. The “development"

includes creation, design and production and marketing of the generated

idea. Through the entire process, its ideas and knowledge which are being

followed, and the process is not complete, until the new idea is converted

into a marketable product or service, which can be a hardware or software

intensive technology.

Let us understand the objectives of Corporate R & D and R&D Projects.

Corporate research and development is the principal corporate asset for

long-term technological competitiveness. We can classify corporate

research activities by the purpose of the research:

To support current businesses.

To provide new business enterprise.

To explore possible new technology basis.

The R&D projects tend to go through the following stages:

Basic research and invention.

Applied research and functional prototype.

Engineering prototype and testing.

Production prototype and pilot production.

Product testing and modification.

Initial production and sales.

The first three stages are usually called "research", while stages four to

six are called "development’; hence, the term "research and development

(R&D)". Each stage of innovating a new product is expensive, with the

expense increasing by an order of magnitude at each stage. The

management decisions to continue from research to development are

therefore very important. Overall, the expenses of modern industry for

R&D were considerable. The major purpose of research is to reduce

technical risk before production-scale investment is committed. It is

generally reported that at each stage, the cost rises by orders of

magnitudes in the ratio 1:10. It is precisely this reason, that technology

generation and development is costlier than basic R&D, and hence all

countries or all enterprises are not able to pursue these activities at

similar levels.

Technology Development

In-house R&D: Technology development activities are generally carried

out through setting up of separate in-house R&D units within the business,

managed and headed by a well-qualified and experienced chief, directly

reporting to the top management. However, this unit has close

interactions with other departments within the company and there could

even be exchange of personnel among different departments. The

strength and facilities in the in-house R&D unit would depend upon the

technology policy of the company and the nature of the business. In large

companies, there are sometime R&D labs for each department and a

central R&D lab for major R&D projects. Industrial R&D is mostly product

or process oriented with specific objectives and time schedule; and not

basic research. Incremental developmental efforts or import substitution

efforts are generally common in most of the industries in developing

countries including India, while emphasis is on new technologies or new

applications of technologies in advanced countries.

Co-operative R&D: A group of companies in a particular industrial sector promotes an R&D centre as a society or a non-profit making company. The R&D is funded by the participating companies and the government. This R&D centre undertakes R&D as per the requirements of the companies in their larger interest, and sets up expertise and facilities of common nature and which are usually expensive. A company can also support specific projects to this centre. Cooperative research facilities are normally utilised for the projects which are not of cautious nature from the business point of view. Otherwise, most important part of the R&D can be done at the centre and the remaining part involving finer details or critical technological aspects affecting the competitiveness is done at the in-house R&D division of the company.

Contract research: A company may contract components of technology

development to suitable R&D organisations, academic institutions, or

consultants or experts. The in-house R&D unit may coordinate the

progress of the activities, to develop the desired technologies. This

approach usually requires considerable internal technological and

managerial capabilities coupled with a strong Science and Technology

(S&T) information base.

R&D collaboration: A company may collaborate with another company in

areas of common interest, if costs of development are high. Such inter-

firm collaborative R&D efforts are becoming common in developed

countries mainly due to high costs and shorter technology life cycles. It is

found in areas such as micro-electronics, materials, information

technologies, bio-technologies, and so on. A firm may also collaborate

with the public funded or privately funded R&D institutions on case-to-

case basis, where R&D results are shared mutually, and so are the

expenses. A company in India may even collaborate with another

company or R&D institution abroad, on mutually agreed terms.

Q2. Explain the dimensions of technology transfer and features of

technology package.

Dimensions of Technology Transfer

The time and resources required to transfer a given technology depend

upon:

• What is actually transferred?

• The mode of transfer.

• The incorporation abilities of the receiving enterprise.

• The abilities and inspiration of the supplier enterprise.

The technology progress varies in character, that is, whether it is

transferring or diffusing. We transfer technology from an enterprise to an

individual, and diffuse the technology from an individual to an enterprise.

To understand the implication of the culture, you must praise the variation

between transfer and diffusion. The advancement of the technology

depends on the combined effect of transfer and diffusion.

From the above concept, we can say that the individual is the pivotal point

of technology movement, whether transfer or diffusion. It conveys you the

concept of cultural dimension.

Several years ago, a minibus manufacturing plant was closed in Pakistan.

A program of ten years for the transfer of built-up and market technology

had failed. The buses produced were identical with those successfully built

and marketed in foreign country. But in Pakistan, they could not maintain

the building-up quality. The sale of buses was dull, and required excessive

maintenance and repair. They could not find the solutions even after the

investigation of the problem. So, they left their program forgetting their

whole experience. Actually, the problem was with the bus and not with the

customers. Since the vehicle was designed as per the supervision and

administration of British manufacturing plant, distribution and marketing

organisation. It was designed to be driven in England or similar

environments where repair services and spare parts will be easily

available. As we find difficult to adjust with the foreign culture, technology

is also not culture free. Those creating and applying technology perform

within the context of their culture, and incorporate it into their work. the

manufactured product works with the culture from which it came. The

same is true for other technologies like, refineries, electric power stations,

mining machinery, computerised information systems, engineering,

education, and so on. So, either the technology must adapt different

culture or the people who use the technology must adapt to the culture

used in the technology for successful transfer. Usually, the combination of

both is required for the successful technology transfer. If it is transferred

without any adjustments can be referred to the result of blind luck. Most

recently developed technologies are embedded with “western” type

cultural qualities, including that available from developed countries. Most

of these qualities are considerably different or do not exist in other

cultures. However, they influence both the transfer and successful

application of the technology.

The qualities often include:

• The problem-solving method and logic.

• The decision making social authority structure.

• Taking initiative action for analysis value.

• The time management and plan as it relates to tasks and activity.

• The relationship between performance and incentives.

• The view and appreciation of pre-emptive action to prevent future

problems.

• The social suggestion including questionnaire, conflict and

confrontation.

• Source of personal status in the work place and society.

• The relationship of fatalism and self-determination.

• The vertical and horizontal orientation to organisational authority.

Features of Technology Package

In the previous section, we learnt about the dimensions of technology

transfer process. In this section, we will learn about the features of

technology packages.

You are now familiar with technology transfer, and you might be thinking

that what technology package is. So let us start with the definition of

technology package. Technology package is nothing but the technology

services, which include estimated market price, annual payments, and so

on.

The technology package consists of three principal elements, namely,

product design, production technique, and management systems.

• Product design may range from simple items to highly complex

(example, automotive) parts.

• The techniques related to production and the layout of the plant

comprises of photocopies and flowcharts, formulas, sheets for process,

instructions for fabrication, designs of tools and fixture, operational

procedures and material specifications.

• Management Systems comprises of different plans, blueprints and

technical control systems (along with relevant marketing and financial

controls). These covers design and blueprint of plant, quality control and

testing, acquirement of material, inventory control, techniques for

equipment maintenance and repair, and machine loading.

The three principal categories of technical information or know-how

inherent in technological systems are general knowledge, system-specific

and firmspecific knowledge. These various categories of knowledge may

be in the form of written fabricating or processing equipment.

General Knowledge refers to information common to industry such as

blueprint reading, tool and fixture design and fabrication, welding

techniques, and so on.

Since the technology is a package (or service) type that cannot be viewed,

it shows the feature attributes of packages, which includes:

• Indivisibility: Since there are few demanding parties, a lot of time and

effort is required to find out apparent customers, unlike product transfer.

In particular, industry is gaining good reputation corresponding to

company credit- rating and technology capability because of different

language, culture, and commercial practice that overseas customers

have.

• Consumer participation: Technology transfer activities together with

objective technology data, technology sales data, document submissions

in Korean and local governments and so on needs various documentation

systems. As a result, technology peacekeeping troops are needed to

accomplish English documentation tasks, negotiation, and contracts. They

must be experts in international manner and language skills, financial

analysis and marketing research skills, international contracts skills, and

communication skills to sensibly persuade counterparts. So, technology

transfer responsibilities should be recognised as technology mediation

rather than being a duty domain of patent attorneys.

• Non-traceability: Since the technology is an indefinable item, it can gain

trust only by providing the technology capability as per the customer

requirement. In particular, samples or demonstration along with data from

public organisations as evidences with authority are essential. The

authoritative public organisations may include the patent office, testing

and research centres, and so on.

• Difficulties in standardisation: The scope of the corporate market can be

widened with the help of technology transfer. In terms of market size and

opportunities and overall good market expansion opportunities, growth

and revenue are very important factors that can be gained respectively

without production facilities or operation funds.