برنامه ریزی انعطاف پذیر برای مدیریت پروژه های "تحقیق و توسعه" تحت ریسک

Incorporating managerial flexibility in an innovative R&D project is important, because managers face greater uncertainty in today's competitive and dynamic changing environment. It is essential to bring managerial flexibility into R&D project planning to decrease technical and market risks, while increasing potential market value. The objective of this paper is to develop a flexibility planning methodology based on real option analysis to improve managerial flexibility for R&D projects. The proposed methodology identifies potential risks that may occur during every R&D stage. It also recognizes a cascading option structure to resolve the identified risks, and evaluates and selects adequate options that maximize the potential value of the project. Instead of using a traditional option pricing method, a dynamic programming model that considers multidimensional product performance and market payoff is used to evaluate the R&D project value. Using the proposed methodology, managers can identify future scenarios as a function of their management actions. The proposed flexibility planning methodology can help managers improve managerial flexibility of R&D project and increase the success rate of product launch. A drug development project is used to illustrate the proposed methodology.

In the increasingly competitive and globalized marketplace, enhancing innovation capability is a key strategy for high technology firms to increase profitability and growth. Therefore, innovative product development plays a key role in the successful performance for these firms. However, uncertainties in technology and market are the major inherent difficulties in developing innovative products. The presence of large uncertainty leads to high R&D risks, resulting in many failures in R&D projects. For example, in the pharmaceutical industry, where there are tremendous technology and market uncertainty, information on technology availability and feasibility and market requirements does not become available or stabilized until the late development phases. The success rate of a drug development project from the first study in humans to launch is less than 10% (CMR International, 2006). Therefore, how to effectively manage R&D risks to enhance successful product launch has become a very important issue for managers.

Since an innovative R&D project usually encounters very high technology and market uncertainty, the average success rate for market launch is very low; therefore, incorporating development flexibility into the R&D project is very important to decrease technical and market risks, while increasing potential market value. This paper developed a flexibility planning methodology that could identify potential critical risks, recognize an appropriate option structure, and select the adequate managerial actions that maximize the value of development flexibility to increase the success rate of a product launch. In an uncertain R&D environment, it is very critical to embed development flexibility into an R&D project during the project planning. The proposed methodology combines risk management with modern financial valuation tools that can quantify flexibility, helping managers to improve the development flexibility of an innovative R&D project. In addition, it also allows decision makers to proactively manage risks and explore potential growth opportunity.