Commercializing New Technologies [Hardcover]

Vijay K. Jolly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1997 | ISBN-10: 0875847609 | ISBN-13: 978-0875847603

The author tackles the issue of technology commercialization, characterizing it as a dynamic process that proceeds through five stages: imagining, incubating, demonstrating, promoting, and sustaining. Contrary to traditional approaches, which emphasize a linear progression from research, through development, to engineering, production, and marketing, Jolly focuses on the benefits of an underlying dual insight, a commitment to scientific rigor and market orientation from the outset. From this perspective, he develops a framework for achieving successful technology commercialization by identifying the key functions, value outcomes, and stakeholders at each stage of the technology's evolution, and focusing on the resources required to progress from one stage to the next. Drawing on scores of case examples from a wide variety of industries, Jolly highlights both successful and unsuccessful attempts at technology commercialization, and makes the case for a new approach to R&D management based on specialization by stage rather than by function. In so doing, he explores the implications for managing technology investments over short- and long-term time horizons.

Editorial Reviews

Review

What separates successful new technologies from duds? Why has the compact disc player become almost ubiquitous, while a true video phone (as opposed to CU-SeeMe and other online telephony) is still years away from commercial viability?

The key to understanding the commercialization process, says Vijay Jolly, a professor of strategy and technology management at Lausanne's International Institute for Management Development, lies in the dual recognition that a technology is not a product but a capability embodied within a specific set of products, and that there's a difference between innovation and value realization. The best mousetrap in the world won't help you if the market isn't interested in catching mice.

In dense, example-laden prose, Jolly thoroughly dissects the commercialization process, breaking it into five subprocesses: imagining, incubating, demonstrating, promoting and sustaining a new technology in the market. One of Jolly's most significant contributions to our understanding of technology commercialization is the notion that these subprocesses are linked by intermediate stages of stakeholder mobilization and that the stakeholders can change from one subprocess to the next.

Jolly also offers advice for large corporations hoping to improve the return on investment in their technology research. He suggests that they deploy specialized, semidetached R & D units within the company and grant them the limited autonomy necessary to pursue their goals. Keeping these research units in the loop once their findings are integrated into the company's commercial strategy will enable the company to generate new technologies more quickly, allowing the innovative subculture and the larger corporate environment to thrive. -- Upside, Ron Hogan

About the Author

Since 1984, Harvard Business School Press has been dedicated to publishing the most contemporary management thinking, written by authors and practitioners who are leading the way. Whether readers are seeking big-picture strategic thinking or tactical problem solving, advice in managing global corporations or for developing personal careers, HBS Press helps fuel the fire of innovative thought. HBS Press has earned a reputation as the springboard of thought for both established and emerging business leaders.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 410 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business School Press (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875847609
• ISBN-13: 978-0875847603
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,126,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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