Ten top tips

Peter Davies’s top tips on how to make the most of emerging technologies

• Do your research. Emerging technologies can have a profound and potentially disruptive impact. Hence it is important to have a broad context for the design task. Start with a long-term view of what the market drivers are in your product or service sector. Time spent researching the trends is a vital part of ensuring that the product features, however they are technologically delivered in future, will have maximum longevity.
• Think big at first. At this first stage do not get overly bogged down by practicalities. Use imagineering, which will help you focus on what the users will value. Marketeers are often better at this than technology specialists who may be too quick to say why they think it cannot be done.
• Get your facts straight. Just because you have operated in one sector for some time, do not assume that you already know the answers. Use the internet, global databases and specialist advisors to adopt a ‘facts not opinions’ approach.
• Be imaginative. Look for ideas in the design freedoms used in the widest possible range of products. There may be no reason why they have not been applied in your sector other than a lack of imagination.
• Weigh up the risks. Classify the technologies needed to deliver the design aspirations in terms of their current accessibility to you and the estimated risks of acquiring the new ones. For the new ones, make techno-economic assessments of their impact on the product and set an affordable upper limit on the cost of acquiring the technology.
• Find out what’s available already. Don't reinvent the wheel. Ninety-five per cent of the world's R&D is done outside the UK so always check what is already out there and possibly available. There are publicly funded services specially set up for this.
• Be cost efficient. Acquiring new technology is expensive but you don't have to do it alone. Ask yourself if there is a supply-chain interest for cost-sharing. Are there applications in other sectors that could lead to non-competitive partnering? There are specialist innovation support companies that can help you establish such consortia.
• Be prepared. Always have stage gates in the design and development process so that you can, if necessary, opt for a safer 'plan B'. However certain the prospects look, the use of new technology is high risk even if the potential rewards are huge.
• Be patient. Because technology moves on so rapidly, you’ll find you have to go through a lot of the stages mentioned again and gain. Don’t be disheartened, it’s just the nature of the beast.
• Seek out funding opportunities. There may be public subsidies available for some of the riskier technology development or acquisition, particularly the nearer it gets to emerging technologies. The grant schemes at the national and international levels are complex, so choose an experienced technology partner to access them, at least in the first instance.