Q1.

Define the term technology. Write a short note on evolution and growth of technology.

Answer : The term technology refers to knowledge, processes or products of technological activities, according to the context in which it is used, and the term management refers to the act of getting people together to achieve a specific goal. Management refers to the process of planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling the activities in an organization. Thus, we can say that management of technology/technology management includes the factor of technology in all the activities like planning, organizing, resourcing and leading the organization. In this unit, we will discuss about the technology management, which is needed in all the organizations. Different people think differently about technology. In the context of business, economists consider technology as the knowledge used in the production, commercialization and distribution of goods and services. In this unit, we will mainly focus on defining technology, and different types of technology. We will also discuss about the evolution and growth of technology. We will analyze the role and significance of technology management. In this unit, we will also study the impact of technology on society and business. We will also analyze the two forms of technology that is process technology and product technology. Technology is derived from the Greek word technologia in which "techne" means craft and "logia" means saying. On the whole, technology means having the knowledge of making something.

In the previous section, we learnt about the concept and meaning of technology. Now, we will discuss about the evolution of technology, before going to the other topics about technology. The history of technology dates back to the time when humans were able to prepare some simple tools with easily available natural resources. History indicates that the advancement in technology had a major leap with the invention of the wheel. From the invention of the wheel, much usage of the technology has started. The technology in all the fields has grown to a larger extent and now we can see the technology involved in almost all the things we use in our daily life.

We know that there are some advanced technologies at present which include the printing press, telephone and Internet which have helped us to communicate all over the globe. Till now we have mainly concentrated on technology management in general. Now let us learn about technology management in India. ******************************************************* Q2. Citing an example, state and explain the reasons that compel a company to go for the new technology.

Answer : Reasons Compelling a Company for Obtaining a New Technology In the previous section, we learnt in brief about the different alternatives for acquiring new technology. Now let us discuss about the reasons which compel a company for obtaining a new technology. The use of new technologies plays an important role in the industry. Whenever a company wants to adapt the new technologies, it has to make decisions related to the acquisition of the technology. The company has to see the experience of its R&D for the actual need of acquiring the knowledge. The acquisition of technology becomes critical when the market lead time and competition is more. The following explains the reasons that compel the company for technology acquisition. 1 Technology acquisition helps to bridge the gap in technology, in the developing countries like India. The fastest way of bridging the technology gap is through collaborations. Acquiring the technology from outside company is more costly than acquiring technology from the R&D of the same company. It will be better, if we develop the new technologies from the in-house R&D. The dependence of the company on the collaboration is bad and we should have the self-reliance in the company every time. 3 2. Technology acquisition depends on the policy environment. Sometimes the economic policies do not allow the foreign countries to sell their goods and services in the domestic market. In such times, the foreign companies can get the financial returns only through the collaboration and selling the raw materials and components. 5 3. Technology acquisition is the process by which a company acquires the rights to use and exploit a technology for the purpose of improving or renewing processes, products or services. It does not include retailed or mass market off the shelf software which is generally governed by non-negotiable "shrink wrapped" licenses.

4. Technology acquisition is mainly designed for business-to-business technology acquisition. In few cases, technology comes from a university or research organization. The origin of the technology can take place in any area but it has to be tested, proven and ready to use. 5. Technology acquisition helps for enhancing the productivity of an organization. The company planning for technology acquisition has to make the agreement between the two companies and even the details of the costs are also present as part of the application. ******************************************************** Q3. Briefly describe the concept of technology choice. List and explain the steps involved in technology assessment process. Answer : Technology choice: Choice of technology has significant involvement in growth and productivity of an organization. The use of technology is always related to an objective. Because we can use different types of technologies to realize an organizations goals, but the issue of choice arises. The effective choice depends on previously decided measures for a technology's conference specified requirements. In addition, it depends on the ability to identify and evaluate opportunities in different technologies. The expected result is that the organization will go for the most "appropriate" technology {AT) in this situation. The technology choice in the framework of society and its creation is the idea of imaginary assumptions and are the key sources of meaning in social and cultural life. Imaginary assumptions can be considered as conscious or unconscious symbolic representation of human actions in the creation of meaningful and sense making ideas. Symbolic representation proposes implications which require perceptions of not only the real or rational, but also an additional imaginary component. This eventually comes from the original ability of positing or presenting oneself with things and associations that do not exist and have never been given in any depiction. The social world is, in every situation, constituted and expressed as a function of such a system of implications. These implications exist after they have been formed, in the method of what we call the actual imaginary or the imagined. These imaginary designs play an important role in modelling the choice of symbolic representation constituted by the world, and especially the choice of its organisational symbolism as well as the ends to which it supports functionality. In the perspective of technology choice, we can say that imaginary implications are the result of both rational technology based economic behaviour and complex

imaginary struggles that emerge at various points and in many shapes by providing archives of meaning about the content of technology and its application. These implications and dominant interests are reflected in the shape and functioning of technology in imaginary practice. This is an imaginary field which individuals and institutions create in order to maintain and show representations and projections of possible alternative realities and ideas of possible fate related to the content and application of a technology. Because of this balance between the assumed, the real and the imaginary components of these implications, the technology and its choice encloses not only the preferred technology based economic implications of the technology itself, but also the engraved imaginaries of technology in society, work, and institutions. For example, the acquirement of certain technologies can simultaneously provide verification of membership of certain social groups, indicate cherished relationships and include imaginaries about knowledge practices, expertise and relations to other actors by encouraging new aspects of subjectivity. Technology Assessment Process: We can say that the process of technology assessment comprises of recurring cycles of planning, data gathering, and reporting results. We can classify these three cycles into nine steps, as given in the figure.Technology assessment has been defined as a form of policy research that assesses short-term and long-term results of the application of technology. Instructional technology assessment involves recurring cycles of planning, gathering data, and reporting. It is good to plan the technology assessment at the same time we coordinate the technology introduction, so that we can take necessary steps such as collection of baseline data. Figure explains the technology assessment process.

Technology Assessment Process 1Descri ption of

technology and context: In the first step of technology assessment, we must describe the technology we are going to use, in terms of the function or intention or purpose of the technology, its possible affects, and the resources that are required. 2Identification of stakeholders and their requirements: In the second step of technology assessment process, we identify the stakeholders, and their requirements, that is, their needs. Identification of their needs will help us to aim attention at the technology assessment process, so that we can get good results. 3Identification of the purpose of assessment: This is the third step of technology assessment process. In this step, we identify the purpose of the assessment of technology. This will help us in determining the procedure of conducting the assessment. 4Identification of the intended uses of the assessment: In this fourth step of technology assessment process, we identify the intended uses of the assessment. We can define intended uses as the particular ways in which the results of the assessment will be applied. 5Creation of an assessment plan: This is the fifth step in the process of technology assessment, in which, we create a plan for the technology assessment. This plan is an elaborated description of the procedure of implementation of the assessment, which comprises of the identification of resources existing for the

implementation of the plan, information to be gathered, method{s) to be used for research, description of the roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders those were identified in step 2, and time duration for the accomplishment of the tasks. 6Data gathering: This is the sixth step in the process of technology assessment. In this step, we gather data as per the assessment plan. Data gathering comprises of the indicators, sources of the data to be gathered, and methods to use, information quality and quantity, and the relevance in which the data gathering occurs. 7Analysis of data: After gathering the data as per the assessment plan, analysis of that data takes place. This analysis of data covers the identification of patterns in the data, either by isolating the significant findings {analysis) or by combining information sources to reach a larger understanding {synthesis), and making decisions about the procedure to organise, divide, interrelate, compare, and display information. We guide these decisions by the questions being asked, the types of data existing, and input from the stakeholders. 8Making conclusions and recommendations: After analysis of gathered data, we made conclusions and recommendations wherever needed. Whatever conclusions we made, connected to the proof gathered and verified against agreedupon standards set by stakeholders. And, the recommendations we made are the actions for consideration that are based on the conclusions we made, but go beyond simple verifications about efficacy or interpretation of the proof gathered. 9Reporting results: This is the final step in the process of technology assessment. In this step, we report the results of the assessment. We must consider some factor while reporting the results. These factors are: -Creating a report content for the audience. -Describing the aim of the study and its limitations. -Listing both the strengths and weaknesses of the technology. ********************************************************* Q4. Write a short note on technology strategy. Explain in brief about the innovation management. Answer: We know that a strategy is a long term view that describes a high level framework. This high level framework describes where the organization needs to be in the future years. We can define technology strategy as a planning document that explains how technology should be utilized as part of an organizations overall business strategy. The document is usually created by an organizations technology manager and should be designed to support the organizations overall business plan. Most of the organizations use technologies in product and services generation, but all the organizations will not gain the positive competitive advantage

from the technologies. There are many factors in competition, and technology is only one factor among them. Yet, some firms effectively use technology as a competitive advantage, and others do not. One important factor in the successful use of technology is the role of general management in technology strategy. In particular, it has been management's ability to foster corporate core technical competencies. The central idea here is that a business can be developed around a long-term, consistent focus on a core technological competency. What it means, is to have a core corporate technical competency, to lead in both innovating new-technology products and improving manufacturing quality and lowering cost of these products. With this, not only products can be improved, but also manufacturing process can be improved in future generations of technology. The role of management in building competitive advantage for an organization depends on the technology strategy. It is better to understand the intended strategy of general management. We can see that there are three aspects of relationship between the management and technology strategy. These are: 1 2 3 The view of management of the impact of general management on the business and business strategy. The management checks whether there is any chance of discerning the technology strategy. The management checks whether there is any chance of discerning particular orientation towards new markets, developing superior products and pursuing learning curve and cost leadership.

The managers play an important role in the decision making process of the technology. The decision making process involves many problems in sustaining and building competitive advantage. In the case of competitive markets, technology intensity introduces the layer of complexity. Innovation Management Previous section familiarized us with technology strategy. This section will familiarize us with innovation management. We can define innovation management as the systematic processes that help the organizations in developing new and improved products, services and business processes. This involves the use of creative ideas of an organizations employees that brings new innovations to the market place, quickly and efficiently. In business, innovation should not be only limited to the big ground breaking ideas, creative workshops and product based companies. Innovation is often small, incremental changes to products, services and processes. The innovation involves all the managers from different departments. This needs to be planned and managed as a

core business covering all parts of a business. This needs to be integrated at the strategic and operational levels. The activities of the innovation need to be driven by the strategy and current business imperatives. The successful innovation culture consists of all the aspects of a business, and these aspects have to be managed effectively and efficiently like any other core business. Innovation can be built into business, at three levels. The three levels are the annual business planning process, quarterly innovation and day-to-day activities. Innovation is managed through some sort of platform or application. There are two types of innovation tools that are, an electronic suggestion scheme, and a management system controlling the innovation process. The management of the innovation system need to be given to the senior management to control the overall system of innovation. The best practices and tools are applied consistently and appropriately across the organization. Any platform should encourage for the learning activity as a core feature. Installing the innovation culture in any of the company has leaders and teams with ability and commitment. In order to create culture of continuous innovation, the organization requires leadership and commitment from the senior management team. The management team also see that some staff members in the organization are rewarded for the innovative ideas they put in. The senior management need to encourage the innovative ideas from the staff. **********************************************************

Q5. What is Research and Development (R&D), and how is it managed? Explain the different categories of Intellectual Property Management. Answer: Research and Development (R&D): Research and Development also known as R&D, is typically the creation and execution of new product ideas. The research part of R&D refers to the planning and examining stage of creating a new product or upgrading an existing product. The development part involves the process of designing and testing the effectiveness of the new product or product improvement. Research and development management has transformed from the back office work to center stage, to a leading force, becoming a key part of business success. Those days have passed, when a good R&D manager required only technical knowledge. The need for growth, the search for new ideas and new ways of doing things, and growing competitive

pressures has changed the R&D operation into one of the major strategic requirement. This new responsibility has drastically changed relationships with other business operations, such as production, marketing, and finance. R&D management involves the process and methods used to control the amount of funds and effort invested in research and development {R&D) projects. The key concepts used in R&D management include supervising committees, cost management, project management and product life cycle management. R&D management is generally viewed in the manufacturing, scientific and product development sectors. Companies in these industries must dedicate resources to research and development as part of a long-term management strategy. The first process of R&D management is to determine which projects to carry forward. For example, a pharmaceutical company can evaluate the market for hair shampoo that fights dandruffs and decide that there is adequate consumer interest in the product to make it profitable. The R&D management team will then review the possibilities and inform the scientists to explore the possible solutions. The product development team presents the product manager with a project layout, complete with the estimated cost and time required to develop the product. The product manager will discuss the plan with the supervisor or R&D management committee. After review and approval, the product development work can begin. Even though there are multiple stages of this process, it ensures senior management assistance for all initiatives as well as a proper understanding of the costs and the time line for each project. Cost accounting is a key feature of any R&D management system. Under a cost accounting system, every new project or activity is assigned to a cost center. All equipment, provisions and material costs related to the project are charged to this account. In addition, employees monitor the time spent on the project so that the remuneration and benefit costs also are charged to the cost account. The reason for this type of accounting is to have a proper record of the amount of money spent on a specific project at any point in time. As a function of an R&D management system, project management processes are used to create a time line, schedule resources and set goals. A clearly defined project has more chances to be successfully completed than one with unclear requirements and no deadlines. A project management plan gives a higher quality output in a shorter time frame Intellectual Property Management: Intellectual property is related to the ideas created in the mind, such as, innovations, content and artistic creations, and symbols, names, pictures, and designs used in business. We can classify intellectual property as industrial property, which comprises of patents, trademarks, industrial designs, and geographic implications of source; and Copyright, which includes content and artistic works such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works, artistic works such as drawings, paintings, images and sculptures, and constructive designs. A copyright includes the rights of artists performances, producers of syllable in their recordings, radio broadcasting and television programs. Different categories of intellectual property management:

Patents: This category is related to the management of patents. We can define a patent as a special license granted by the government of a country, to the owner of an invention, to create, use, produce and market the invention, provided the invention satisfies certain conditions prescribed in the law. Special license means that no one else can produce or market the invention without the permission of the patent holder. This license is available for a limited period of time. In spite of the possession of the license, the use or exploitation of the license by the owner of the patent may not be possible due to other stringent laws of the country which has granted the patent. These laws may relate to physical condition, safety, food, security, and so on. Also, existing patents in the same field may also come in the way. A patent according to law is a property right, and therefore, can be gifted, inherited, allocated, sold or licensed by others. As the right is granted by the government, it can also be withdrawn by the government under some very special conditions, even if the patent has been inherited or licensed or produced or marketed by someone else. The patent right is regional in nature, and companies will have to apply for separate patent petitions in countries of their interest, along with required amount, for obtaining patents in those countries.

Trademark: A trademark is a unique symbol or logo, which identifies certain commodities or services as the ones manufactured or used by some other person or organisation. Trademarks may be single or collection of words, letters, and numerals. They may also consist of pictures, symbols, letters, three-dimensional designs, such as, shape and wrapping of goods, or colours used as distinctive feature. Collective symbols are reserved by an alliance, whose members use them to recognise themselves with a level of class. International Certification grades are provided to companies for compliance with the defined standards {example ISO 9000.) formulated by international institutes and governments. A trademark is given to the owner of the mark by providing the exclusive right to use it for identification of goods or services, or to allow others to use it in return for some considerable amount. Copyrights: Copyright is a right, which is given for creating an original content or theatrical or musical or artistic work. Motion films, containing sound track and videos and recordings on discs, tapes, perforated roll or other equipments come under copyrights act. Computer programs and software are covered under intellectual works, and are protected in India under copyrights. Copyright provides protection for the expression of an idea and not for the idea itself. For example, many authors write textbooks on chemistry covering various topics like molecules, heat, compounds and so on. Although these topics are covered in several other books by different authors, each author will have a copyright on the book written by him / her, unless the book is not a copy of some other book published previously. India is a member of the Berne Convention, an international agreement on copyright. According to this standard, registration of copyright is not an important requirement for protecting the right. Hence, it means that the copyright on a work created in India, would be automatically and concurrently protected under copyright, in all the member countries of the Berne Convention. But still, it is a good idea to include a copyright notice. Industrial design: An industrial design is the decorative or artistic aspect of an article. The

design can have three-dimensional characteristics, such as, the shape and composition of an article, or two-dimensional characteristics, such as pattern and decoration. The design characteristics should be incorporated to an object by any industrial process or any means through which the features in the finished object are attractive.

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Q6.

Explain the implementation of new technology. Briefly describe the automation decisions.

Answer : Implementation of New Technology The previous section gave you a clear idea on the necessary points, which you must keep in mind while choosing a new technology. In this section, we will understand its implementation. We know that planning is the key to success of a project. In the same manner, a sound planning is essential for the success of any technologys implementation. The failures that are likely to arise during the implementation process may be due to the poor planning or inadequate resources. Valuing the conflicts will facilitate the organization to keep away from these problems, and for the management, to anticipate the likely trouble spots and ease it accordingly. You must keep in mind some vital preliminary considerations. These considerations are: Initial considerations: The management of the business needs to understand that the new system alone cannot find solutions to all the problems experience by the organization. The whole implementation process involves the complete business process and/or academic practice, consumer services, communication with suppliers and a relationship among all other engrossed stakeholders. There are a number of less-substantial activities, which are critical and people those are involved must : 1. Have an understanding of the organization predominantly, in terms of its traditions and principles are essential. 2 The underlying principle of any new system implementation should be able to provide all the better services to all concerned through it. 3. This information has to be conversed to all concerned parties. 4. A complete review of every business processes and, where required, academic practice, and developing and introducing new policies before tuning the system to meet the decided requirements should be undertaken. 5. The complete approval of the difficulty and flexibility of the system should be determined. 6. The inbuilt dangers of customization of any software should be understood. 7. A thorough system test procedures should be conducted, while accepting the likely need for software malfunction and improvements.

8. The training and development to be conducted for the internal staff should be planned in advance. 9. The users must be trained, to use the system. 10. The users must be trained, to identify faults and correct freely. 11. The essential nature of system documents has to be accepted and retain accordingly. Planning and implementation: A thorough plan with efficient management is necessary for success, and to work against the fear of high costs, extended time, losing key persons and common disappointment with the result . Go-Live Considerations: Finally, it is essential that the go live day causes as tiny disturbance to the daily business, since it is practically possible. The various issues arising at this point of time will negatively affect the organisations status, sometimes irreversibly, with all stakeholders. Considerations for implementation As we are discussing about the implementation of technology, we will now briefly discuss about some considerations for implementation of technology. Be aggressive: An important consideration when implementing a new technology is to be aggressive to set up a strong competitive edge. The competitive edge enhances production that may be related to the total system performance and authorizing employees. A competitive edge will make the clients and customers more independent. For example, we can think of an ATM machine that will make the customers convenient by establishing it outside the bank. The competitive benefit may possibly combine several functions, partners, or flow of data that will lead to a effective business. Be cautious: If the new chosen technology provides revenue to your business, then it is necessary to be careful while making any major modifications in the new technology. Being cautious does not merely mean that you should avoid the advancing technology. It conveys to be more careful in understanding the consequences and secondary applications which may perhaps be impacted as a result of a very small change. If we consider examples, of some companies that had apparently made changes to billing, failed to produce invoices or statements to the clients. The consequence formed economic poverty for the billing company, and for the displeased customers, who abruptly received several months worth of amass billing once the accounting system problem was resolved. In addition to the impact on cash flow, the relationships with the customers become weak. Henceforth, you should be aggressive to increase the competitive chances to grow the profit and performance of your business. At the same time, you must be careful even while implementing changes that may affect your core business contributions, customers, or billing. Be quick: It is important for you to be quick enough to implement the small changes to your chosen technology and to supervise their impact. There should not

be any delay, when it comes to performance improvement, internal proposal for simplifying routines or improving customer performance. We must follow a set of routines, to design small changes, test changes and schedule to bring consistent enhancements. It is pretty often, the minor improvements encompass the major impact to business performance. Be slow: If major changes affect your business, it is vital to make the implementation changes slowly. Normally, the center design and functions of the business are well-organised and updated. The processes that are more frequently in use are likely to get the majority attention and seem to be highly evolved. Basically, these processes are given the first priority, when it comes to implementing a transfer in technology. On the other side, you must avoid focusing on common ground, also conserve the primary processes until the changes have been tested on some of the more difficult and less used utilities. There will be remarkable information to be achieved with the experience and less effect on business by concentrating on most composite and least used functions. Be safe: During the implementation of a new technology, the better time to address the potential security needs is at the time of design and development. It is better to employ a security expert who will take care of the privacy of the organisation. If you have customers, credit cards, customer accounts, customer information, intellectual belongings, monetary information, health information, or employee information stored automatically, available on a network, or printed in files, then it is vital to consider safety. Also, if you are planning to undergo a technology change, it is the right time to reassess the associated documents by means of a security or privacy specialist.

Automation decisions In general, we can say that automation decisions are the decisions that are related to automation. The automation decision is considered most suitable for coherent, evidently defined decision situations. The automation decisions act like legal support systems that instantaneously solve and offer solutions to the recurring organisation problems. They are directly related to business informatics and business analytics. The automated decisions are basically dependent on business rules. These rules can be shaped or activated by business analytics. One of the components of automation decision support is rules-engine. For the purpose of operational decision making, a rules-engine is used. The engine employs actionable analytics and business rules to make and deliver adapted alert. In addition, it relates the business intelligence to business users or to create and deliver action messages for processing by operational applications. To handle a particular business situation, it produces alerts and messages which might contain the announcement, warnings and suggested solution to solve a problem.

A rule engine can also be invoked by a user in real time to assist in business decisions, whether to fund a loan to the client or in providing credit cards, or to calculate the risk occurred in a particular business transaction. The current automation design decision systems are well suited for the decisions that have to be made often and rapidly, by the use of information that is available electronically. The chief consideration is that the knowledge and decision criteria used in these systems have to be highly structured. If specialists are capable of readily codifying the decision rules, and if premium data are accessible, the conditions are favourable for automating the decision. The rule engines are implanted in a number of software products, including web application servers, and business intelligence tools, where they are sometimes called intelligent agents. The sophisticated stand alone rule engines are building up and advertised by the vendors. To fully exploit the advantage of the influence of a decision-making system, the analytics, suggestions and actions has to be linked and integrated with the overall business process. It can be achieved by means of business process automation (BPA). Let us understand the use of BPA in a Business Intelligence (BI) environment with the help of an example given in figure he upper portion of the figure illustrates an easy functioning workflow for dealing out a customer order. This workflow is used so as to establish the indications in the operational process,

where business action desires to be supervised by a BI system. Application and data events can then be confined at these points and used to populate an Object Distribution Server (ODS) or a data warehouse. The ODS acts like an objectified information used by the clients to obtain and contribute knowledge be accomplished directly in the application itself, in an integration broker or at application and data interfaces like database API, application API, EJB interface and user interface2. If an analytics workflow in a rules engine in the BI system discovers a business condition that needs action, the business user possibly will be on the alert and pass an action workflow to assist identification of the problem and decide what action to take. If automation is necessary, the action workflow possibly will be implanted in the rules engine, which would produce the suitable action messages to be sent to the functioning environment.