|
Competitive risk assessment is a phrase that applies to activities ranging from assessment of technical risk in an innovation or new technology project to assessment of insurance risk to others. Robert Charette (IT Pro July/August 1999) wrote an interesting article in which he classified the state of competitive risk assessment in companies as risk-entrepreneurial, risk-insight, risk-control or risk-arrogant. If I would change anything in his categories, I might subdivide the risk-arrogant category into a sub-group that we might call risk-ignorant or more kindly to risk-unaware.
For our purposes, we can define competitive risk assessment as processes and tools that allow us to determine the likely next responses of a competitor to a planned technology improvement, invention, acquisition and the like. With our definition of competitive risk assessment, we can expect to answer questions like the following.
• What competitors exist in the technology landscape we are investigating?
• How committed are they to developments in this area?
• Are they working now or have they moved on to other areas.
• How is the technology developing?
• Are there technology barriers?
• Do we have the solutions to the barriers?
We recognize that our definition of competitive risk assessment is limited to technology questions, but it serves us in analysis of innovation, new product development activities or M&A activities.
At Patent Insights, we see a competitive risk assessment as a key component of any technology development activity. We see it as part of the fuzzy-front end of planning for any technology development program or project. We also see competitive risk assessment as a task for every project team that intends to do something new or untried within the organization.
Contact Us Call today. Phone: 847-249-2712.
At Patent Insights, we have unique tools and processes to assist in the process. See some exmaples in our white papers. Patent Insights has been mapping technology for more than six years and our founder has been mapping technology as part of his research programs for decades. The process is robust and proven. Patent Insights can help with custom research on your technology problem and our emerging market research.
|
