| For technological companies to survive in today's fast changing business environment and intense market competition, they look for R&D investment in emerging technologies as a key solution. Successful implementation of technologies can strongly enhance a company's competitiveness. However, due to funding constraints, companies must cautiously evaluate technologies before they should invest.; This research provides an analytical model to help managers understand how technologies are evolving and how well different technologies fit their corporate strategy. The model combines the concepts of technology forecasting, identification, assessment, evaluation, and selection.; The Delphi method for obtaining expert opinion is applied to generate strategic information about the development of emerging technologies including their estimated introduction date and their characteristics.; Emerging technologies are then evaluated using a hierarchical decision model with four levels: objective, criteria, factors, and technology alternatives. Comparative judgments provided by experts are analyzed to determine the relative priorities of the components in each level of the hierarchy. A new method for applying a semi-absolute scale to quantify the value of each technology is proposed. The overall impact of each technology on the company's strategic objective is calculated as a composite index called Technology Value.; Technology development paths are specified by connecting technologies from one period to the next. The path connecting technologies with the highest value in each time period is defined as the "technology development envelope (TDE)." By investing in technologies following the TDE path, a company's technological benefits will be maximized. The TDE and the various technology development paths serve as strategic inputs to the company's technology roadmapping process.; This method was developed using a rigorous systematic approach, and was subjected to various tests to show that the method is robust with respect to the variations in a company's priorities. |
