STIM Consortium 2020
The Strategic Technology & Innovation Management (STIM) Consortium is a practice-oriented research and networking collaboration between industrial member companies and the Centre for Technology Management.
2020 STIM Brochure to download
Members of the Consortium benefit from:
- Access to a network of firms from a range of industry sectors to share experience through a regular series of meetings and engagement in individual research projects.
- The opportunity to influence the direction of research and development, with the associated early benefits gained through participation in case studies and application pilots.
- Transfer and application of methods developed, enabled by guidance notes and training packages.
A summary of the 2013 - 2019 programmes and research portfolios can be found below:
- 2013 programme
- 2014 programme
- 2015 programme
- 2016 programme
- 2017 programme
- 2018 programme
- 2019 programme
2020 STIM Programme
STIM 2020 projects are summarised below, clustered into 4 broad themes, with key lead researcher contacts:
A) Collaboration
1) Interacting with universities: organisations’ strategies for better engagement – Dr Antonio Crupi, antonio.crupi@santannapisa.it
The study aims to frame a broad picture regarding the strategic choices and the organizational characteristics that help companies successfully engage with universities. The first step aims to identify and categorize STIM participants answering the questions: Who are they? What level of interest they have in cultivating the research ideas? What sort of power/position they have to better implement the ideas in the organizations? The second step focuses on the organizational dimensions exploring what happens after the engagement.
2) Driving organisational culture change – John Saiz, jrs98@cam.ac.uk
This project serves to further validate an organisational culture framework and engagement methodology developed in 2019 (‘How organisational culture affects innovation’). In addition, the intention is to develop an approach that companies can use to prioritise perceived ‘gap’ areas and take action to improve the culture in their organisation.
3) Capturing value from the innovation ecosystem – Dr Arsalan Ghani
aag35@cam.ac.uk
Increasing fragmentation of firms based on their core technological competencies within a complex innovation ecosystem is presenting challenges to capture value. This process supports innovation teams in developing actor coalitions, and deploy mechanisms through innovation portfolio and roadmapping process to capture value from the innovation ecosystem to gain competitive advantage.
B) Innovation
4) Actor engagement by system configuration type – Dr Man Han Yip, mhy29@cam.ac.uk
Followed from previous research , this project explores how the proposed system configuration types could help identify the engagement needs of human and non-human actors. Using a case study approach, where a case is a launched or halted development project, this project intends to provide actors mapping by configuration type.
5) Innovation velocity – exploring the temporal aspects of technology-based activities – Clare Farrukh, cjp22@cam.ac.uk
This project builds on previous STIM projects (2018/2019) which aimed to develop a better understanding of ‘innovation velocity’. The aim in 2020 is to test the methods developed to assess innovation velocity for technologies both external and internal to the organisation, to explore further the links between the internal and external perspectives, and to make links to related tools. This approach will be supported by looking at a wide range of literature and past work within a broad technology/innovation readiness perspective.
6) Making innovation tasks self-sustaining? – Clare Farrukh, cjp22@cam.ac.uk
This project aims to explore how the compliance effort needed to ensure the timely and accurate collection of the routine project and portfolio information needed in innovation processes can be reduced. This approach will be supported by looking at a wide range of literature taking a broad innovation, continuous improvement and organisational behaviour perspective.
7) Agile NPD in not-purely software projects – Dr Val Lynch, valerie.lynch@andtr.com
Companies are increasingly using agile methods within their innovation processes. Fixed development timelines for components other than software, (e.g. hardware / machinery / pharma compound formulations) and factors such as reporting requirements to both internal and external stakeholders, are examples of obstacles faced by managers when implementing agile processes. This project builds on a STIM 2018 to explore how companies can address these obstacles.
8) MAKEit! Nurturing collective creativity to solve complex problems (year 2)
– Dr Curie Park, cp538@cam.ac.uk
The project investigates what drives collective creativity within innovation contests. By conducting case studies of 10 MAKEathons designed to provide solutions to grand challenges facing food value chains, we will cross-analyse data from interviews, surveys and in-situ observations. The outcomes of this project will help industry understand how to structure problems which can be solved in MAKEathons, to generate creative solutions for complex problems.
9) The shifting vocabulary of hacking – Dr Paulo Savaget, paulosavaget@gmail.com
The vocabulary of hacking has gained traction beyond communities of computational geeks, acquiring different connotations (e.g. hackathon, growth hacking, and biohacking), and being used by companies, intergovernmental organisations, and governments. But why? How has ‘hacking’ morphed over time? What are the similarities and differences in the use of the term?
10) Process and quality management implementation compass – Dr Michail Glykas, mglikas@aegean.gr
Quality management (QM) is a challenging subject for managers to handle, given different theories, methodologies, standards, tools, awards, etc. In many cases lack of knowledge and effective project management and control lead to QM failures or excessive costs in creating and maintaining QM systems. This project proposes a new QM classification framework to be used as a ‘compass’ via which all quality management implementation initiatives in an organisation can be identified, analysed in an holistic manner, comprising four categories: Total quality management, Quality methodologies, Quality standards, and Excellence awards.
C) Strategy
11) Visualising portfolios – Dr Clive Kerr, civk2@cam.ac.uk
Portfolio perspectives are fundamental for managers. Generally, the execution of such visuals is relatively poor. Taking a pragmatic stance that attempts to balance the provision of data with conveying insights for users, this research project will continue the process of developing visual representations for depicting different types and aspects of portfolios.
12) Intellectual property (IP) strategies for sustainable impact – Dr. Pratheeba Vimalnath, pv302@cam.ac.uk,
Developing an IP strategy that aligns well with a company’s business model but also considers the company’s sustainable (social and environmental) impact is important but challenging due to lack of proven approaches. While companies often operate implicit IP strategies, a first step towards developing a more powerful IP strategy is to diagnose what the actual strategy is. This project focuses on helping STIM members to diagnose their IP strategies, but also aims at further developing our approach for developing IP strategies, particularly with an emphasis on integrating thinking that considers sustainable impact into IP strategies.
13) Applying the digital roadmapping approach – Prof Dr Maicon Oliveira, maicongdo@outlook.com
Roadmapping processes are required to incorporate digital technologies to support information management and virtual collaboration. This project aims to apply in industrial cases the digital roadmapping approach developed at CTM. Members involved will develop a digital roadmapping workshop and analyse how to integrate results to their project systems.
14) Analysis of key factors and efficiency in strategic workshops – Dr Yujin Jeong, yujingjeong312@gmail.com
This project aims to explore and analyse key factors and efficiency of strategic workshops in different cultures and organisation through statistical analysis using survey, interviews, and real observations. It enables to extract the key factors that make workshop delegates (especially engineers) participate and present their opinions more actively during strategic workshops.
15) Establishing the current state and effectiveness of competitor intelligence approaches– Andi Jones, ajj48@cam.ac.uk & Dr Clemens Chaskel, cdc31@cam.ac.uk
Industry is constantly shifting: new players enter, old players change strategies. To navigate successfully in this environment, strategy should anticipate the competitors’ behaviour. This project builds knowledge of how Competitive Intelligence is carried out in organizations in terms of processes and tools, and how the outputs feed into strategic planning.
16) Narrative dynamics of institutional logics in the development of technology roadmaps – Dr Dong-hyu Kim, Dong-hyu.Kim@glasgow.ac.uk
This research will investigate the situatedness of language use in the persuasion process of technology roadmapping. Our primary data consist of the transcripts of discussions and supporting documents, which will be parsed using discourse analysis and open and selective coding methods. This research will cast new light on the strategic use of narratives in legitimating the development of technology roadmaps.
17) Strategic roadmapping implementation and embedding – Dr Yuta Hirose, yh359@cam.ac.uk
Continuing from 2019 STIM research project (#15), the aim of this project is to discuss in-company strategic roadmapping experience with STIM member companies. The focus will be mainly on characterising maturity levels, checkpoints and types of firms in terms of roadmapping implementation and embedding in organisational settings such as business cycles and management systems.
18) Strategic roadmapping and stakeholder engagement for technology venturing
– Dr Yuta Hirose, yh359@cam.ac.uk
The aim of this project is to develop a structured visual mapping approach, by applying roadmapping principles, with the goal to support strategic alignment and engagement between technology ventures and investors. A roadmapping process consisting of 10 steps has been suggested to provide a communication platform that enables technology ventures and investors to inclusively navigate a potential business direction and path to value creation and capture.
19) Roadmapping hardware venture pathways from prototype to manufacturing
– Erica Melo de Carvalho, erica.melo-de-carvalho@strath.ac.uk
A “second valley of death” occurs when innovators move from prototype stage. This project aims to develop a framework for mapping new hardware venture pathways from prototype to full manufacturing to bolster understanding of potential obstructions to this journey and of alternative paths to support strategy development and investment readiness.
D) Digitalisation
20) Engineering human performance in cyber-human technology – Dr Thomas Bohné, tmb35@cam.ac.uk
How can human abilities be amplified with technology such that this will also lead to superior results on the job? Scientific understanding on this topic is still minimal, and only rigorous experiments and analytic approaches will produce much-needed insights. Our project focuses on this challenge by exploring and piloting novel approaches in how digital technologies blend with and augment humans to extend their capabilities and improve industrial performance.
21) IoT-driven mass customisation suitability tool – Ravi Sikhwal, rks50@cam.ac.uk
The Internet of Things (IoT) might provide a technological platform where user preferences data can be obtained and further analysed to obtain a tailored end product with customer-specific configuration. This project aims to develop a tool that can indicate the suitability of different products for this approach of mass customisation.
22) Five steps for digital transformation – Dr Diana Khripko, dk530@cam.ac.uk
IfM’s research provides a wide range of tools to support companies in developing their innovation strategy, decision-making and strategy implementation. This project focuses on the Five Steps for Digital Transformation framework. It aims to integrate existing but disparate solutions created from IfM research for different aspects of digital transformation.
23) Strategy formulation and transformation roadmapping for Industry x.0 – Ahmad Abdalazim, aaa95@cam.ac.uk
In a global survey, C-suite cited the lack of precise roadmaps and guidance as a major obstacle to Industry 4.0 transformations . This research aims to develop a guidance framework to formulate strategic objectives, operational targets, and roadmap the transformation across different levels, while integrating innovation systems concepts, roadmapping techniques, and industrial architectures.
For general enquiries about the STIM programme please contact Rob Phaal at rp108@cam.ac.uk
