Accessing External Sources of Technology

OVERVIEW:Interest in capturing external technology is clearly rising within the R&D management community, and companies are exploring many forms of business relationships with external technology sources. However, industry practitioners have experienced a number of problems, the most important being the failure to recognize and manage technology sourcing as a strategic business process. The author offers a conceptual model of this increasingly important business process, and presents a number of useful industry practices, identified by an IRI working group, for planning and organizing search efforts, evaluating merits of identified opportunities, negotiating and finalizing agreements, managing collaborative R&D activities, and ensuring organizational learning and improvement.