Technology road mapping: the issues of managing technology change

Technology road mapping has emerged in recent years as a key management too l in formulating the link between technological resources and the exploitat ion of market opportunities. A powerful aid to strategy formulation and com munication, the technique has the major advantage of bringing many function s within a business together around a common plan. Although there is no def initive guide to road mapping practice, the application in many different b usinesses has revealed a number of generic aspects. A major common factor i s that technology road maps are concerned with the introduction of technolo gy change into an organization. This paper proposes a conceptual model of the factors significant for the s uccessful introduction of technology change. The relevance of this framewor k to technology road mapping is discussed based on the in-depth experience of developing and implementing TRMs for three large companies. Also discuss ed briefly are results of questionnaires sent to these three companies to o btain a feedback on their post-implementation experiences.