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Technology Architecture & Strategy

Technology Roadmapping is a requirements-driven, technology planning process used to identify, select, and develop technology alternatives to satisfy a set of business and business product needs. Technology Roadmaps are a form of technology planning used to position a company in an increasingly competitive environment. While Technology Roadmaps have been used by some companies and industries, the focus is usually on the roadmap as a product, not on the process.

EEI’s Architecture Strategy Team has formalized the Roadmap process so it can be more broadly and easily used. Effective technology planning is used to identify, develop, and integrate the technologies required to support critical and strategic business requirements. A vital thread throughout the planning process is to align systems with tangible business objectives, business strategy and business cases.

The main benefit of a Technology Roadmap is that it provides information to make better technology investment decisions by identifying critical technologies and technology gaps and identifying ways to gain competitive business advantage. It can also be used as a marketing tool. A Technology Roadmap is critical when technology investment decisions are not straight forward. This occurs when it is not clear which alternative to pursue, how quickly the technology is needed, or when there is a need to coordinate the development and integration of multiple technologies.

The Technology Roadmap process consists of three distinct phases:

1. Preliminary Activities such as:

a. Identify leadership and sponsorship;

b. Define the scope and boundaries for the Technology Roadmap.

2. Development of the Technology Roadmap includes:

a. Identify the products that are the focus of the roadmap;

b. Identify the critical system requirements and their targets;

c. Specify the major technology areas;

d. Specify the technology drivers and their targets;

e. Identify technology alternatives and their time lines;

f. Recommend the technology alternatives that should be leveraged;

g. Finalize the Technology Roadmap report.

3. Follow-up activities include:

a. Critique and validate the roadmap;

b. Develop an implementation plan;

c. Review and update.

Fundamentals of the Technology Roadmap – Globally, companies are facing intense competitive pressures. Products are becoming increasingly complex and customized to support business requirements. The time-to-market cycle of new products and derivative products is shrinking as is product life span. In many companies, a short-term business focus is reducing investment funding. These conditions require companies to be more efficient, focused and to better understand their industries, customers, and markets. Better Technology Planning can help deal with this increasingly challenging environment.

Companies are beginning to use Technology Roadmaps as a critical technology planning tool to better position themselves and their products. Leading companies will do effective technology planning to identify, develop and deploy critical, business relevant technologies. With greater budgets in the past a broader range of potentially relevant technologies could be considered and explored.

Using a Technology Roadmap, a company can make better investment decisions because it has superior information to:

1. Identify product needs and features that will drive technology selection and development decisions;

2. Align product needs and features with business marketing and selling cycles;

3. Determine the technology alternatives that can satisfy critical product needs;

4. Select the appropriate technology components;

5. Generate and implement a plan to develop and deploy the technology components.

At EEI, the Technology Roadmap process is driven by a need, not a predetermined solution. It is critical to start with the need (read Business Requirements) not a preconceived solution. It is a fundamentally different (and flawed) approach to start with a solution and look for needs (read requirements).

Benefits of the Technology Roadmap – The Technology Roadmap has several potential uses and resultant benefits which include:

1. The Technology Roadmap helps to reach a consensus about a set of requirements and the technologies needed to satisfy those requirements;

2. The roadmap provides a mechanism to help forecast technology requirements in targeted areas;

3. It delivers a framework to help deploy and coordinate technology resources within the company;

4. Finally, the Roadmap provides information which is used to make better technology investment decisions!

An additional benefit is that as a marketing tool, a technology roadmap can illustrate that a company understands customer requirements and has access to solutions to meet those same requirements.

Key Deliverables – A Technology Roadmap is the document generated by the Technology Roadmap process. It identifies (for sets of product needs) the critical system requirements, the product and process performance targets, and the technology alternatives and milestones for meeting those targets. In effect, the roadmap identifies alternate technology roads for meeting specific performance objectives. A single road may be selected and a plan developed or multiple roads may be pursued concurrently. The roadmap identifies exact objectives and helps focus resources on the critical initiatives required to meet those objectives.

For information on Technology Strategy and Technology Roadmaps please call (212) 344-2000 and ask for ESD Sales.