Robin Sparrefors
Principal, Head of Business Development
Client challenges
- The technology landscape relevant to the client’s business was getting increasingly complex and converging with digital-based industries.
- New technology areas related to e.g. connectivity, automation and data analytics did not fit in the scope of the current organizational structures or with traditional ways of assessing R&D investments.
- At the same time there was pressure on the company's CTO to reduce R&D spend while fueling the innovation pipeline and securing access to critical technologies.
- To meet growth and profitability targets the client could not afford to build internal technology development competence across the entire landscape and technology needed to be cost-effectively accessed externally.
Impact
- Konsert supported the client by developing and implementing a customized digital technology innovation framework. The framework used a data-driven method for identifying technology areas of strategic importance by cross-matching the areas’ impact on long-term business strategies.
- Selected technology areas where then evaluated based on business rationale, the client’s current capabilities and the technology landscape in order to set innovation investment strategies for how and to which extent the client should engage in each technology area.
- The project resulted in a high-precision corporate-wide technology innovation strategy guiding R&D budgets, internal R&D project proposal and selection processes, externalization of R&D activities as well as collaborative efforts.
- Based on the digital technology innovation strategy the client is able to secure cost-efficient access to critical new technologies from internal and external sources and thereby increased the R&D output. At the same time, the client has been able to make conscious R&D spend reduction decision through focusing activities in prioritized technology areas, moving budgets and resources from legacy areas to future-oriented digital technology.
- The digital technology innovation framework allows the client to recurrently identify critical technology areas and select the best ways to access the technology from a cost and capability perspective.
