ابزار استراتژیک پیش بینی برای شرکت های کوچک و متوسط: چگونگی تعامل چشم انداز فرصت با استراتژی کسب و کار به منظور پیش بینی گرایش های فن آوری

Due to the increasing pace of technological change and in order to remain competitive, planning gains more importance in all companies, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, existing planning tools do not correspond to SME-specific needs; restricted resources often render their implementation difficult. This paper proposes a novel concept: the Opportunity Landscape. Its main purpose is to make relevant technological information available to decision-makers in order to anticipate future developments and to act accordingly. The concept is developed and described in detail and then illustrated by means of a case study conducted in a Swiss mid-sized company.

A concept for managing technological change has been proposed to assist management in SMEs. The discussion of some generic strategic approaches and ideas of technological forecasting has led to the conclusion that two important links are missing: most strategic concepts neglect SME-specific needs, and corresponding TI approaches lack a relation to business strategy. However, some basic ideas, most notably from the gatekeeper concept and knowledge management, could be used to develop a promising method to close these gaps: the Opportunity Landscape. Although this concept is no ‘panacea’, the conducted case study has confirmed both its usefulness and its feasibility for implementation in SMEs. Yet, the Opportunity Landscape builds and strongly depends on an open-minded company culture and a serious commitment of top management. As the Opportunity Landscape constitutes a corporate knowledge base in which individual ideas become innovation potentials, it is imperative that this dynamic process be additionally supported by appropriate measures, i.e. modern IT infrastructure. Compared to big-scaled solutions built on existing strategic concepts, the Opportunity Landscape is affordable for SMEs because of its high degree of flexibility (effort and resource allocation can be matched, depending on the company's needs). This aspect fills one of the mentioned gaps because it brings strategic concepts closer to SMEs. The interaction of the Opportunity Landscape with business strategy closes the second gap: on the one hand, the identified opportunities influence future strategic decisions, while on the other hand strategy indicates the observation focus of intelligence activities. The Opportunity Landscape has been successfully implemented in one mid-sized company. At this point, no empirical relevance can be proven, however, the concept is now being evaluated and further developed in other SMEs acting in different industries and of different sizes.