Technology Roadmapping for A Service Organization

Roadmapping has helped the Royal Mail to prioritize research activities and ensure that technology considerations are integrated into business strategies. One of the biggest challenges facing the United Kingdom Royal Mail and other service organizations is how to maximize the value of its investments in technology, driven by increasing global competition and the rapid pace of technology development. Royal Mail's ability to manage technology effectively at a strategic level will be essential to ensuring its success as a globally competitive distribution company. Technology roadmapping (TRM) provides a method for ensuring that investments in technology are aligned with the development of new capabilities that are required to exploit future market opportunities. The TRM approach has its historical roots in technology-intensive product-based companies, but it is equally applicable to technology-contingent service-based organizations, where the value of technology investment must be maximized and communicated. This paper describes the application of TRM within Royal Mail's research planning area, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge. The results demonstrate how the technique can be successfully applied within a service-based organization, and highlight the benefits of roadmapping as an effective tool to support strategic technology management. The Royal Mail applications formed a key stage in the development of the T-Plan "fast-start" technology roadmapping approach (1, 2), particularly in terms of how the technique can be customized to suit different business contexts. Strategic Technology Roadmapping Technology roadmapping is a process and a communication tool to aid strategic decision-making. The overall aims of TRM are to integrate technology considerations with the strategic business context, to identify those technologies that have the greatest potential to meet business goals, and to accelerate the transfer of technology into products. The roadmap is a visual aid that crystallizes the links between research and development programs, capability targets and requirements (3). TRM is an important tool for technology planning and coordination at a strategic level, helping senior managers to make better technology investment decisions (4). While roadmaps can take various forms, they generally comprise a time-based chart, linking technology development/investment to products/services and business/market drivers as shown in Figure 1. Prospective technology roadmaps look forward from the present, and use expert opinion from different areas of the business to create a future view that helps to answer specific questions. The questions can vary considerably, depending on the context of the roadmap but could include such questions as, "If funding for a particular technology development is reduced or delayed, what are the implications for achieving downstream capability milestones?" Roadmaps may be technology driven or needs driven, but the most powerful are those that merge the two perspectives (5). The "technology push" perspective charts developments of a particular technology or group of technologies to identify potential future product opportunities. The "market pull" perspective charts future performance or customer needs, to identify which technologies to invest in, and in what timeframes. In companies that have successfully deployed TRM, it is an iterative process that fits within the broader strategic planning context. Strategic planning involves decisions that identify and link at a high level the customer/market needs a company wants to address and the products and services to satisfy these needs. Given this strategic plan, technology planning involves identifying, selecting and investing in the technologies to support these product and service requirements. Business development involves planning for and implementing certain aspects of the strategic plan, specifically those involved in the development of new products/services or new lines of business. …