Course Project Part 2—Managing Emerging Technology Markets

This week, you will continue to develop your course project research and analysis on the emerging technology topic you selected in Week 1. You will continue researching scholarly sources from the South University Online Library and from the Internet. Add to the bibliography as you find new sources of valuable information.

For your research topic, the first question is whether the market is big enough to warrant a technology adoption or development project. You will need to research and make several assumptions about the emerging technology trajectory, the availability of standards and supporting infrastructure, competitive alternatives, and collective investments in the industry. You have the choice of three assessment approaches for future markets: diffusion and adoption, exploration and learning, and triangulation for insights.

One of the concepts introduced this week is market segments. This means that a market may not be uniform, in terms of customer demands, and may feature different customer niches, or segments. For your selected emerging technology topic, you need to consider how the technology might be used by an organization to offer its products or services. Here, you will key on some technology attributes for your products or services. You should refer to your Week 2 online lectures for examples of technology attributes. Determine some key attributes (these may be basic attributes, discriminators, or energizing attributes) that apply to your products or services. Select two important attributes and draw a 2D graph with these attributes corresponding to the abscissa and ordinate axes as shown in the figure below. Then, identify at least two technology barriers or constraints. Such technology constraints are typically represented by straight lines that bound the area where a product or service can be positioned in the attributes space diagram, as shown in the figure below. Note that representing technology constraints or barriers as straight lines simplifies the analysis. In a real-life application a technology barrier will usually exhibit a nonlinear behavior. You should refer to your Week 2 online lectures for examples of technology barriers.

The same diagram can show market niches or segments. These are typically represented by concave, negative unipolar curves, as shown with Segments A and B in the below figure.

Product or service attributes, technology constraints or barriers, and market segments or niches determine how an emerging technology could be used to derive a competitive advantage. Examples of strategies include Single Market Segment Domination, Multi-Market Segments Expansion—Pushing Technology Barrier, and Multi-Market Segments Expansion—Revolutionary Technology. You should refer to your Week 2 online lectures for definitions of these three strategies.

Forces in the external environment shape an organization’s commercialization strategy for its products or services. Typical forces are change in technology and skills, change in complementary assets, change in customers, and change in competition.

Tasks:

Utilizing the concepts introduced this week, address the following tasks pertaining to your project topic:

• Determine which assessment approach for future markets you will pursue: diffusion and adoption, exploration and learning, and triangulation for insights. You may choose one or more assessment approaches. Justify the adoption of your selected emerging technology using your market assessment framework.
• Develop an attribute matrix for your products or services.
  • Determine some key attributes (basic attributes, discriminators, or energizing attributes) that apply to your products or services and justify your choice of attributes.
  • Select two important attributes and draw a graph with these two attributes.
  • Identify at least two technology barriers or constraints and explain how you arrived at the constraints. Show the technology constraints on the graph.
• Identify at least two possible market niches or segments and show them on the graphs. Qualify these niches or segments with respect to the two product or service attributes you selected for your project.
• Analyze how the emerging technology you chose could be used to derive a competitive advantage given the product attributes, technology constraints, and market niches you identified.
• Describe the forces in the external environment that are most likely to shape your organization’s commercialization strategy for its products or services.

Complete the assignment in 5 to 7 pages in a Microsoft Word document. In APA format, cite any sources you use on a separate page. The references you cite should be credible, scholarly, or professional sources. Any examples you cite must be supported with sources fr