Tactics To Improve Your Tech Scouting
Keeping up with new technology is critical for business performance. Leading your organization to good standing for innovation leadership requires strategies and best practices as emphasized by Bill Briggs, CTO at Deloitte.
Staying informed on innovation from a position abroad is difficult
With so much new technology emerging in the world around us, staying on top of what is going on is hard. Now add that to the fact that where the action is taking place is thousands of miles away from where your business is. Sound like a problem? Sure is. And what’s scarier is that the people who are staying ignorant of the need and importance of tech scouting are the ones who are seeing their businesses fail.
Tech Scouting Across Cultural And Ethnic Borders
Tech Scouting across cultural and ethnic borders is particularly interesting. Multiple studies have found that the majority of meaningful innovation that your company uses on a day-to-day basis will come from outside the organization. Even the Wall Street Journal stresses the importance of external scouting to drive success (WSJ). However, making connections and relationships in a different continent with respective business norms is harder than it seems.
1. Areas of Growth vs. Operational Efficiency
The abundance of opportunities within tech scouting makes it imperative for you to narrow the scope in relation to your business. To do this, you must ask the question: “Why?” Many organizations conduct activities that are surprisingly not strategic. In this case, analyzing points of weakness within your organization allows you to categorize where operational efficiency is needed.
On the other hand, areas of growth, look forward into business projections and ask how new technology and innovation can help achieve the goals of the business. It is important to note that these two are not mutually exclusive events. It is perfectly normal to have both. However, prioritizing which one will be the most beneficial in your short- and long-term success will help you save time and resources.
If Operational Efficiency:
First, management must identify needs collaboratively and understand the current challenges in operation within the company. Here, it is important to emphasize the biggest problem points in a company rather than the technology itself. Assessing pain points will help set up navigational road marks for potential business partners. When you meet a potential partner, being able to tell them where you are struggling, why you are struggling, and how it is affecting your business makes their process of remedying that much easier. Knowing your business well and communicating that to others is one of the basic requirements of successful tech scouting.
If Areas of Growth:
Having a roadmap for your business will also help expedite the scouting process. Look at relevant companies that are involved in your industry. What do they have in terms of innovation and development that your business struggles with? Forward-looking, imagine how different technological advancements could play a role in the industry your business is involved in. This requires research and an intellectual thought process. However, by providing this intuition, you can understand as a business leader the challenges that you may face, as well as how to restructure your organization to most efficiently align with scouting goals.
By building a strong infrastructure for tech scouting in your organization, you lay the foundation for embedding growing technology to your advantage. It is important to bridge the gap between leadership and employees when evaluating areas of growth. Internal communication is a must-have to be successful. By doing this, the various parts of an organization are all kept in the loop and can make active decisions. As a result, you can build a methodical internal development process and plan for what areas of growth will have the most impact on an institution.
“A scout must be able to quickly assess opportunities and partnerships that come up and determine if they are the right fit for your business. ”
Setting Up A Successful Scouting Process
Focus on finding the most efficient and appropriate technology to address our concerns. A scout must effectively identify and capture a high volume of tech opportunities. This can often be the trickiest part of the process. With various emerging technologies in a plethora of industries, finding the right fit for your business needs is challenging and will require a thorough understanding of the company and how technology is being applied.
This is where the previously mentioned internal communication comes into play. Having a strong network allows scouts to narrate information to everyone quickly and easily. Also, keep in mind that there is no one-step solution to most tech scouting problems. Keep an open mind and be open to facing adversity throughout the process.
Closing and Evaluating a Project
From then on, you must quickly evaluate the opportunities presented among experts in the field and distinguish potential. If one immediately identifies a bad opportunity, it is important to avoid them early on and conserve time and energy with the agile process. Perhaps the next biggest challenge is managing technology collaboration at any scale. The tech scouting process can get messy. As the volume of opportunities rises and the internal needs of a company expand, it is important to stay organized and store information in a common space, to be accessed at any time.
To measure key metrics, you must further proactively manage the tech portfolio. Some indicators will tell us if certain criteria will be met. Keep in mind that key metrics will differ from project to project but these three are good places to start:
1.) Business exposure
2.) Business efficiency
3) The amount of new business areas developed
These indicators and key metrics will change as your tech portfolio becomes larger and it will also depend on the type of specific situation you are combatting. The goal is to optimally align your business needs to match those that are serviced by emerging technologies. As you scale up, the need for active management becomes increasingly more important. Not qualitatively asking questions, such as:
“Did my pain points get solved or are they still there?” and “What other problems can I fix through the scouting process?”
After you have successfully scouted technology, you must consistently observe and optimize performance aligned with the company’s strategic goals.
How We Help At 10X Innovation Lab
10X Innovation Lab holds years of experience of working in the Silicon Valley innovation ecosystem, as well as having access to a global network of entrepreneurs and emerging technology innovators. We apply a structured tech scouting process, combined with our best practice method for executing the technology search in multiple channels and innovation hubs. 10X Innovation Lab works as a full-service innovation outpost and can also support the interaction between identified technology providers and our clients, to ensure concrete business results of the scouting efforts.
If you are interested in learning more about the 10X Innovation Lab Technology Scouting Offerings, reach out to us at klaus@10Xinnovationlab.com.