Do you know the steps of the Technology Watch process?

The Technology Watch process is developed in a series of stages, which are aimed at maximising the impact on the organisation.

Technology Watch is a process that aims to capture information, analyse it and create value for decision making, with a specific focus on the impact that technology can have on the organisation and its innovation projects.

Technology Watch is conceptually a part of Competitive Intelligence but specialised in technology. It is therefore often used especially in universities and research centres, to support both R&D and technology transfer and exploitation of the results. But it is also developed by companies: from large corporations with powerful R&D departments, to small start-ups or technology-based companies (EBT) that break into the market.

Steps of Technology Watch

The steps of Technology Watch process are inherited from the more generic discipline of Competitive Intelligence, and we can distinguish 5 classic phases:

1. Planning and definition of the focus.
2. Acquisition or collection of information.
3. Processing of the collected information.
4. Analysis and production of "intelligence".
5. Dissemination of the results.
   
   

To these 5 classic phases of Intelligence at Antara, we always remember to add the last and key phase: decision making and launching of actions, as Technology Watch would not make sense if it is not used in the decision making processes.

We must emphasise that the technology watch process is not a circle, but a spiral because in each cycle we make decisions, but above all, we learn as an organisation. This learning leads us to review the objectives of the intelligence and enriches both our sources of information, who to watch and the concepts to handle, what we want to know.

This spiral of the Technology Watch process stems from a primordial stage: the State of the Art or State of the Art (SOTA) report. The role of the State of the Art analysis in Technology Watch is, in a nutshell, to take a snapshot of the current state of technology or knowledge field, its applications, who the relevant actors are, and where advances are announced or published. This phase is the first step of Technology Watch, which allows launching the spiral process of continuous enrichment.

Automation of the Technology Watch process

A key aspect of the process is that we can automate several steps thanks to the use of Technology Watch software. Thus, the acquisition, filtering, categorisation of information and dissemination of results among the team can be fully or partially automated thanks to the digital transformation of this process. We will save many hours of work per day, and this is a direct economic benefit that will accumulate over time.

In addition, the advantages of implementing a Competitive Intelligence system are also differentiated:

• Cost reduction is based on minimising risks thanks to early warnings and taking advantage of opportunities.
• Reinforcement of sales.
• Boosting innovation.
• Improved decision making.

Competitive Intelligence and Technology Watch software, how does it adapt to your objectives?

On the other hand, we can find different types of Technology Watch, depending on some parameters:

• Maturity level or TRL of the technology.
• Basic or applied research capabilities of our organisation. The sources and focuses of intelligence will be different depending on the phase of invention, transfer, exploitation or even commercialisation of our organisation.
• Profile of our organisation. It is not the same to do VT as a country, as a university research group, or as a company.

By combining these factors, we will obtain different configurations of our Technology Watch process.

Just as in the physical world we have different specialised tools, spanners, hammers, screwdrivers... and we also have multi-tools, those that integrate everything from knives to pliers, screwdrivers or scissors, in the world of software we can find very specialised Technology Watch applications, and others that solve a wide range of needs.

With Antara Mussol Competitive Intelligence and Technology Watch software, we will solve the problem of broad-spectrum surveillance that the company's Innovation Department may have, which needs to monitor not only patents but also technical articles, industry journals, regulatory agencies or what competitors themselves are saying.

Depending on the objectives of our organization, we will choose a competitive intelligence and technology watch software that fits our priorities, and we will approach the project step by step.

At Antara, we want to be by your side to help you implement and advise you on the competitive intelligence and technology watch software that best fits your company's needs. Want to learn more about our software and find out how it can help your company? Contact us.