Technological threat and opportunity assessment

One of the major challenges in the management of innovation is a practical and useful implementation of technology forecasting. This article proposes the concept of anticipating the technological future, and that a structured approach to this concept could be an invaluable aid to technical decision-making, The notion of technological threat and opportunity assessment is presented as a useful framework for anticipating technological change. This notion is based on a dual approach. Firstly, a rapidly changing global technological landscape necessitates keeping track of technological developments. However, since we are dealing with innovation (rather than mere invention), the market implications are as important as the technological ones and have to be accounted for as such. Secondly, any organisation could be considered to be technology-based to some or other degree, implying that technologies have the ability to affect the bottom line of the organisation in some way It is thus required to assess the business impact of such technologies, typically through a technology or innovation audit. Having assessed specific technological threats and opportunities facing the organisation, an innovation strategy needs to be developed in response to the identified threats and opportunities. Various possible offensive and/or defensive responses should be considered, culminating in the selection and implementation of an optimal strategy. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Inc.