Strategic Management of Technology
May 2008 (University of Leeds)
The future role of the manufacturing industry in developed economies is vividly debated among business leaders, policy makers, and academic researchers. This debate highlights the importance of the holistic management of industrial knowledge, and the role of radical innovation and change. These identified drivers for future competitiveness for manufacturing are a challenge for managers. Concepts such as knowledge, radical innovation and change are due to the accompanying uncertainty hardly amenable to a straightforward prescription that can unambiguously guide practice. Managers, therefore, need to be familiar with the variety of concepts that can be adequately applied in different strategic circumstances characterised by a high degree of uncertainty and ambiguity. Such concepts offer a firm grounding for strategic thinking and reasoning rather than a means for prescriptive and instrumental recommendations.
The module Strategic Management of Technology and Manufacturing Innovation, within the Executive Masters Programme in Manufacturing Leadership at the University of Leeds, combines selected and advanced topics from strategic management, technology and innovation management and manufacturing strategy. The module aims not only to build an understanding of the role of technology, scientific advances, manufacturing operations and engineering knowledge in creating and sustaining a competitive advantage, but also to provide tools to generate scenarios to enable the recognition of future opportunities.
Strategy Management
What is strategy – and does it matter? Different perspectives on strategic management exist and the richness of strategic concepts illustrate the multifaceted nature of strategy. The strategic relevance of unique resources, knowledge and capabilities and their influence on competitive advantage, can be understood through the case study of Nucor at the Crossroads. The case examines the performance of Nucor, a mini-mill, in the US steel industry. From a strategy perspective the steel industry is generally considered to be economically unattractive, with many steel makers making low returns to shareholders. Against this background Nucor, for more than a decade, produced spectacular returns for shareholders. This case study offers an opportunity to discuss the likely explanations for Nucor’s outstanding performance and we can also consider some possible non-explanations.
Tools and frameworks for understanding strategy include industry analysis, industry structure frameworks and competition, analysis of resources, knowledge and capabilities.
Technology Management
The brutal pace of technology innovation creates new business opportunities, but at the same time produces difficulties for managing associated discontinuity. The dynamic models of technology evolution views technology as having a life of its own with radical phases and incremental phases, each of them may take a different type of firm to succeed. New concepts challenge the dynamics of punctuated equilibrium and suggests that speed of technology demands the continuous management of discontinuity. Uncertainty and discontinuity produce new challenges for managerial cognition and tools for imagining future developments become increasingly relevant. An indicative case study is Eastman Kodak: Meeting the Digital Challenge. Eastman Kodak faced a dilemma as technology was changing within its core photographic market from chemical to digital imaging. The company had staked its future on being a leader in digital imaging. Yet, despite massive investment and a string of acquisitions and strategic alliances, Kodak’s ability to establish competitive advantage within the digital imaging sector remained in doubt. The case describes Kodak’s digital imaging strategy and explores the challenges for developing new organisational capabilities.
Scenario planning is a process that stimulates imaginative creative thinking to better prepare an organisation for the future. Participants in scenario planning map out a small number of possible scenarios, and develop options for their organisation for managing within these future worlds. Scenario planning is used as a tool for technology management.
Innovation management
At first glance the phrase innovation management appears as to be something of an oxymoron. Most inventions fail, but the companies that do not innovate under-perform. This tells us innovation is not easy, but it is an imperative. The session focuses on the most common pitfalls in managing innovation and presents ‘best practice’ techniques and concepts for overcoming them. Concepts such as open innovation, networked innovation, ambidextrous organisation and organisational creativity are introduced. In order to offer some insights on how to operationalise exploratory projects, the concept of real options is introduced. An indicative case study is Intel Research: Exploring the Future. Intel Research was charged with exploring new and disruptive technologies that lay off the 'silicon roadmap' which drove most of Intel's research and development efforts. This exploratory research was conducted using an approach that the Director of Intel Research oversaw during his years at the Defence Advanced Research Project Agency. Predicated on the funding of university grants, internal research efforts, joint labs run with universities, and selective corporate venture investments, the idea was to build a network to give advance warning of important new technologies.
Manufacturing strategy
This final discussion is on how manufacturing operations supports a competitive advantage. It discusses the existence and importance of trade-offs and possible ways to eliminate them. We must also address possible contrasts between manufacturing paradigms and strategic positioning as well as between efficiency and innovation.
Tools and frameworks for understanding manufacturing strategy issues include Competitive criteria and trade-offs, importance-performance matrix and Hayes and Wheelwright’s 4-stage model.
This content comes from The University of Leeds
The module Strategic Management of Technology and Manufacturing Innovation, within the Executive Masters Programme in Manufacturing Leadership at the University of Leeds, combines selected and advanced topics from strategic management, technology and innovation management and manufacturing strategy. The module aims not only to build an understanding of the role of technology, scientific advances, manufacturing operations and engineering knowledge in creating and sustaining a competitive advantage, but also to provide tools to generate scenarios to enable the recognition of future opportunities.
Strategy Management
What is strategy – and does it matter? Different perspectives on strategic management exist and the richness of strategic concepts illustrate the multifaceted nature of strategy. The strategic relevance of unique resources, knowledge and capabilities and their influence on competitive advantage, can be understood through the case study of Nucor at the Crossroads. The case examines the performance of Nucor, a mini-mill, in the US steel industry. From a strategy perspective the steel industry is generally considered to be economically unattractive, with many steel makers making low returns to shareholders. Against this background Nucor, for more than a decade, produced spectacular returns for shareholders. This case study offers an opportunity to discuss the likely explanations for Nucor’s outstanding performance and we can also consider some possible non-explanations.
Tools and frameworks for understanding strategy include industry analysis, industry structure frameworks and competition, analysis of resources, knowledge and capabilities.
Technology Management
The brutal pace of technology innovation creates new business opportunities, but at the same time produces difficulties for managing associated discontinuity. The dynamic models of technology evolution views technology as having a life of its own with radical phases and incremental phases, each of them may take a different type of firm to succeed. New concepts challenge the dynamics of punctuated equilibrium and suggests that speed of technology demands the continuous management of discontinuity. Uncertainty and discontinuity produce new challenges for managerial cognition and tools for imagining future developments become increasingly relevant. An indicative case study is Eastman Kodak: Meeting the Digital Challenge. Eastman Kodak faced a dilemma as technology was changing within its core photographic market from chemical to digital imaging. The company had staked its future on being a leader in digital imaging. Yet, despite massive investment and a string of acquisitions and strategic alliances, Kodak’s ability to establish competitive advantage within the digital imaging sector remained in doubt. The case describes Kodak’s digital imaging strategy and explores the challenges for developing new organisational capabilities.
Scenario planning is a process that stimulates imaginative creative thinking to better prepare an organisation for the future. Participants in scenario planning map out a small number of possible scenarios, and develop options for their organisation for managing within these future worlds. Scenario planning is used as a tool for technology management.
Innovation management
At first glance the phrase innovation management appears as to be something of an oxymoron. Most inventions fail, but the companies that do not innovate under-perform. This tells us innovation is not easy, but it is an imperative. The session focuses on the most common pitfalls in managing innovation and presents ‘best practice’ techniques and concepts for overcoming them. Concepts such as open innovation, networked innovation, ambidextrous organisation and organisational creativity are introduced. In order to offer some insights on how to operationalise exploratory projects, the concept of real options is introduced. An indicative case study is Intel Research: Exploring the Future. Intel Research was charged with exploring new and disruptive technologies that lay off the 'silicon roadmap' which drove most of Intel's research and development efforts. This exploratory research was conducted using an approach that the Director of Intel Research oversaw during his years at the Defence Advanced Research Project Agency. Predicated on the funding of university grants, internal research efforts, joint labs run with universities, and selective corporate venture investments, the idea was to build a network to give advance warning of important new technologies.
Manufacturing strategy
This final discussion is on how manufacturing operations supports a competitive advantage. It discusses the existence and importance of trade-offs and possible ways to eliminate them. We must also address possible contrasts between manufacturing paradigms and strategic positioning as well as between efficiency and innovation.
Tools and frameworks for understanding manufacturing strategy issues include Competitive criteria and trade-offs, importance-performance matrix and Hayes and Wheelwright’s 4-stage model.
This content comes from The University of Leeds
Share this article:
No Comments