Customer Reviews

The Valuation of Technology: Business and Financial Issues in R&D (Operations Management Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great book, that for the first time, not only brings together the technology management and financial disciplines, but also highlights that often misunderstood cultural differences between these two disciplines that need to work together.

I liked the book so much, I bought 10 copies and distributed them throughout my organization. This is a well conceived book, that covers not only the nuances of technology and scientific discovery and management, and/or the rudimentary aspects of time value of money, but also covers more advanced concepts such as the optionality of R&D investments.

F. Peter Boer's Valuation of Technology is mandatory reading for every CEO, Head of R&D, and key investor who has heard it all when it comes to the importance of "innovating". But who despairs about the absence of fundamental tools for extracting new value from research-driven efforts in all parts of the corporation.

No longer- this is the missing corporate value creation toolset. Valuation of Technology fills the critical gap between value formulas and project-focused research management, in a way that makes a convincing case for future evolution of R&D as a total corporation value resource, not just another functional department.

A former top executive with W. R. Grace and now a professor at Yale (in addition to running his own corporation, Tiger Scientific, Inc.), Professor Boer combines a senior executive's sense of the right measures and analyses with an entrepreneur's enthusiasm and pragmatic curiosity. The author's impressive body of work also reflects his sensitivity to the key people and organizational issues that often spell the difference between exceptional new value creation and disappointment.

This is generally a great read. However, I find the quantitative examples in Chapter 6 very confusing to follow. In addition, as a financial analyst, I feel very insulted for being called "bean counter" numerous times in the book. The author should be more aware of this demeaning attitude he carelessly imbedded in this otherwise great book.

This is a great book. I could have gone even for the 5-stars, but unfortunately, after reading most of the books I found on the matter, I haven't found the 5-stars book on this.

The author combines technical /scientific and management / financial expertise, and you can feel it along the book. You can feel he has hands-on, relevant experience, not only "conculting" experience.

The subject treated are very complete. The treatment is deep enough. It reads quite well.

Overall, a great acquisition if you are in the field.