Management of Technology and Innovation in Japan

386 G. Trauffler and H. Tschirky
global markets. The company’s most important products, in terms of sales, are
mainly in the domains of belting, rubber joints, filter systems, mechatronics &
sensor systems and hose & tubing systems. The company employs approximately
800 people. The income in percent of sales is about 3%.
The organization is divided into six independent business segments. These
segments are responsible for their own sales, production and innovation. Recently
the company formed a corporate technology center. However, the role of this center
seems not yet to be clearly defined. At present it mainly supports research activities
of different business segments that run out of the human resources’ project
schedule.
A rough analysis of the company’s situation uncovered two major points. On
the one hand, it was mainly selling mature products in stagnating or decreasing
markets. On the other hand the company was lacking a clear innovation strategy
that would point out innovation goals and establish organizational responsibilities
needed in order to create a turn around situation oriented towards higher growth
rates.
From a technology management perspective the company situation described
above was difficult to overview at first sight: The organizational structures and the
management processes had been mainly market oriented. However a strategic
purpose focused link between the technologies the company was exploiting and
the products it delivered to their markets was not given. The company’s technologies
had not been considered and managed as strategic assets by which a competitive
advantage could be built up. Furthermore, there were no routines implemented
that could be interpreted as technology and innovation management
processes designed to leverage technologies and foster innovation.
Thus the academic consulting project’s objective was to systematically identify
and evaluate opportunities for innovation. In doing so, the focus was on developing
and implementing strategic technology and innovation management routines,
including processes, structures and tools. The ultimate goal of the project was
three fold: First to leverage and reposition the present portfolio of technologies,
second to find new growth fields and third to build up the innovative power to explore
these growth fields.
Creating Transparency
The first activity in the project was directed towards creating transparency and reducing
complexity in order to gain an overview of the company’s MoT relevant
assets. To create transparency, a tool called innovation architecture (Sauber 2004)
was applied.
Innovation architecture (IA) is a tool that mirrors the company from a knowledge-based
view. It shows the interplay between knowledge assets of the company,
residing in products, technologies and scientific research as well as knowledge
assets in the markets of those products. The link between products and
technologies is established through functions. Functions are solution neutral de-