Acquiring External Technology

As no one company can create all of the technology needed to support today's complex products and sophisticated customers, technology leaders have been seeking ways to incorporate external technology into their organizations' internal technology and commercialization streams. Consequently, a study was undertaken to identify the processes and techniques that 22 companies were using to establish their internal technology needs, identify the external technology to fill those needs, evaluate the technology for its quality and robustness, access the technology through agreements, and integrate it into their internal portfolios. Overall, the most successful programs were found to be those in which technology is valued by the business and where decisions to invest in technology are made by a senior-level, cross-functional team.