Q1. Define the term technology. Write a short note on evolution and growth of te chnology.

Answer: Technology is derived from the Greek word technologia in which "techne" me ans craft and "logia" means saying. On the whole, technology means having the kn owledge of making something. The term technology refers to knowledge, processes or products of technological activities, according to the context in which it is u sed, and the term management refers to the act of getting people together to ach ieve a specific goal. Management refers to the process of planning, organising, staffing, directing, and controlling the activities in an organisation. Thus, we can say that management of technology/technology management includes the factor of technology in all the activities like planning, organising, resourcing and l eading the organisation. Evolution and Growth of Technology In the previous section, we learnt about the concept and meaning of technology. Now, we will discuss about the evolution of t echnology, before going to the other topics about technology. The history of tec hnology dates back to the time when humans were able to prepare some simple tool s with easily available natural resources. History indicates that the advancemen t in technology had a major leap with the invention of the wheel. From the inven tion of the wheel, much usage of the technology has started. The technology in a ll the fields has grown to a larger extent and now we can see the technology inv olved 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, telephon e 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 lear n about technology management in India. Technology management in India The Gover nment of India is mainly focussing on the development of science and technology in the present world. The Indian industries are operating under the controlled a nd regulated economy. The technology management is generally lacking at the ente rprise level except a few enterprises. There are many Indian companies which are able to develop and produce the internationally competitive products. The compa nies which use different kinds of technologies, and are excelling today, in Indi a are the Punjab tractors, tata automobiles, amul food and certain drug and chem ical industries. In the same way, there are many Research and Development (R&D) institutions which have developed and commercialised the technologies in the are as of drugs, chemicals, food technology, and computer software.

The productivity of the Indian industries largely depends on the technologies th at are imported. Most of the technologies that are used in the Indian industries are cost effective. In July 1991, government of India introduced the new indust rial policy that mainly focussed on international competitiveness, quality, effi ciency and exports. This helped in the change in operating environment of the In dian industry. Because of this, very well planned technologies were developed at the enterprise level. These days, the companies are paying more attention on te chnology in order to be more competitive in the business market. It is not only the large scale industries that require the technology management; even the smal l scale industries also need a technology management to face the competitive wor ld of today. 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 The use of ne w 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 acquisit ion 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 cr itical when the market lead time and competition is more. The following explains the reasons that compel the company for technology acquisition. Technology acqu isition 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 costlier than acquiring t echnology 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 co llaboration is bad and we should have the self-reliance in the company every tim e. Technology acquisition depends on the policy environment. Sometimes the econo mic 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 financ ial returns only through the collaboration and selling the raw materials and com ponents. Technology acquisition is the process by which a company acquires the r ights to use and exploit a technology for the purpose of improving or renewing p rocesses, products or services. It does not include retailed or mass market off the shelf software which is generally governed by non-negotiable "shrink wrapped " licences. Technology acquisition is mainly designed for business-to-business t echnology acquisition. In few cases, technology comes from a university or resea rch organisation. The origin of the technology can take place in any area but it has ton be tested, proven and ready to use.

 Technology acquisition helps for enhancing the productivity of an organisation. The company planning for technology acquisition has to make the agreement betwee n the two companies and even the details of the costs are also present as part o f the application. Q3. Describe some characteristics of technology forecasting. Explain in brief ab out the six phases in technology forecasting process. Answer:Generally, forecasting refers to the prediction of future on the basis of a vailable information. In the early days, traditional forecasts used to deal with the speed and power. They did not focus on the structures of the organisation. It was assumed that inventions of the future are not easy to predict. The foreca sters were not focussed on evaluation of the forecast process. Characteristics o f technology forecasting Generally, there are some characteristics that are asso ciated with technology forecasting. We will now discuss them briefly. A technolo gical forecast relates to certain characteristics such as levels of technical pe rformance (e.g., technical specifications including energy efficiency, emission levels, speed, power, safety, temperature, so on), rate of technological advance s (introduction of paperless office, picture phone, new materials, costs, so on) . A technological forecast also relates to useful machines, procedures, or techn iques. In particular, this is intended to exclude the items intended for pleasur e or amusement from the domain of technological forecasting, since they depend m ore on personal tastes rather than on technological capability. A technology for ecast can be for short-term, medium-term, and long-term.

3.3 Technology Forecasting Phases We can study figure 3.2. technology forecastin g in six phases, as given in the Figure 3.2: The Components of Technological Forecasting Process Let us now brief ly explain these six phases. Identification of needs: This is the first phase in technology forecasting process. After identifying the expected outputs and the objectives of the future, a thorough analysis is done in order to make sure the relevance of technology forecasting. This phase ends with a decision of technolo gy forecast. Prepare project: This is the second phase in technology forecasting process. In this phase, the forecasting activities that are planned and resourc es are allocated. The roles of each human resource are carefully prepared and ex plained. There are three human resources, clients, core tem and external partici pants. The client includes both customer and user of technology forecast. The co re team performs the activities like defining references, writing documents, cre ating the structure of the forecast and filling it. The core team co-ordinates t he efforts of experts from team, external participants and clients which help to develop an entire

forecast. The external participants help in providing data, information and expe rience. The major sources of information and data are identified in this phase. Define objectives: This is the third phase in technology forecasting. This phase once again goes through the objectives that are defined in the first and second phases. This phase decides the dimensions of the forecast. This includes both t he normative and exploratory forecast. We use normative forecast, when the desir able future is seen and the normative forecast focus on finding the path, from t he present to the desirable state. Perform analysis and develop Technology Forec ast (TF): This is the fourth phase in the technology forecasting process. This i s the central part of the present research. => In this phase, we start with defi ning the boundaries of the technological system that has to be forecasted. This, in turn, involves definition of other four steps that are clearly shown in the diagram. The four steps in defining the boundaries include defining of the key f unctions and futures, defining system in relation with the laws of system incomp leteness and energy conductivity, defining the system in terms of technological, social and environmental contexts and lastly the analysis of the drivers and ba rriers for the development of the system. => After completing the definition of the boundaries, we get a shape of problem and also the contradiction network. We have to capitalise this set of problems. This also includes the four steps as s hown in the figure 3.2. The first step in this, is reformulating the technologic al barriers into the contradictions. The next step is, defining critical-to-X fe atures, and third step involves the revising and reformulating the collected con tradictions to match with the critical to X features. The last step in this invo lves mapping of obtained contradictions as a network. The network consists of cr itical-to-X features, components of system and opposite values of features. => T he next step in the analysis and develop TF is the analysis of limitation of reso urces. This helps to find the resources that are less and causes problems on the map. R&D helps to get the raw materials and solve the problem. This also helps i n determining the time delays of the activities. => The next step in the analysi s and develop TF involves; build the time diagram. This uses the results that we get after the problem mapping. The different order of critical to X features is developed by considering the different contexts. Validate results: The fifth pha se in the technology forecasting process is to validate results. This includes the customer satisfaction with the results of TF. There are different processes tha t are associated with the evaluation of the results of the forecast. Our R&D use s the traditional method of evaluating the result of forecast. We can do peer re view with the external experts and our colleagues in between working hours of th e forecast to make the evaluation easy. Application of TF: The last phase in the technological forecast is the application of TF. This depends mainly on the needs and the formulated objectives. We have seen the developing of TRF using the con tradiction networking. This helps mainly in all the projects.

Q4.Write a short note on technology strategy. Explain in brief about the innovat ion management. Answer:Strategy Let us first understand the concept technology strategy. We know t hat a strategy is a long term view that describes a high level framework. This h igh level framework describes where the organisation needs to be in the future y ears. We can define technology strategy as a planning document that explains how technology should be utilised as part of an organisations overall business strat egy. The document is usually created by an organisations technology manager and s hould be designed to support the organisations overall business plan. Most of the organisations use technologies in product and services generation, but all the o rganisations will not gain the positive competitive advantage from the technolog ies. There are many factors in competition, and technology is only one factor am ong 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 bee n managements ability to foster corporate core technical competencies. The centra l idea here is that a business can be developed around a long-term, consistent f ocus on a core technological competency. What it means, is to have a core corpor ate 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 improv ed in future generations of technology. Technology strategy and management After studying the meaning of technology strategy, let us learn about the relationshi p between the technology strategy and management. The role of management in buil ding competitive advantage for an organisation, depends on the technology strate gy. It is better to understand the intended strategy of general management. We c an see that there are three aspects of relationship between the management and t echnology strategy. These are: The view of management of the impact of general m anagement on the business and business strategy. The management checks whether t here is any chance of discerning the technology strategy.

 The management checks whether there is any chance of discerning particular orien tation towards new markets, developing superior products and pursuing learning c urve and cost leadership. The managers play an important role in the decision ma king process of the technology. The decision making process involves many proble ms in sustaining and building competitive advantage. In the case of competitive markets, technology intensity introduces the layer of complexity. Elements of an accessible technology strategy Till now we have seen how the technology strateg y and the management are related. Now, we will study about the elements of an ac cessible strategy. The accessible technology strategy defines how the technology fits within the organisation. This is mainly helpful in integrating the technol ogy into the business plan and business. It also makes sure that the accessible technology strategy is aligned with the business needs. An accessible technology strategy includes some elements. Let us have a look at these elements in figure 4.1. Figure 4.1: Elements of an Accessible Strategy We will now have a brief discussi on on the elements depicted in figure 4.1. Vision statement: This involves the c reation of a unique statement that defines the role of accessible technology in the organisation and how it supports the organisations overall vision of accessib le technology objectives. We have to restate the accessible technology vision, i f the organisational vision already provides the foundation for creating accessi ble objectives. Objectives: The objectives define the success metrics and clarif y the details of vision statement. The objectives use the vision of the accessib le technology. Expenses and budget: This involves the clarification that is done in regard to the expenses, and describes the funding resources. This explains w hich expenses should become a part of overall technology purchase, and which sho uld come under a separate budget. Some organisations include the assistive techn ology product costs in the main centralised accommodation budget, and some compa nies deduct these expenses from the individual

technology budgets of each department. It is important for us to clarify the bud get decisions and see that the funds are allocated appropriately. Ownership: The ownership defines the responsibilities of the team members in the project. The ownership also plans the execution of the project. There should be one committee to see whether the execution of the plan is moving correctly or not. Innovation Management We can define innovation management as the systematic processes that h elp the organisations in developing new and improved products, services and busi ness processes. This involves the use of creative ideas of an organisations emplo yees that brings new innovations to the market place, quickly and efficiently. I n business, innovation should not be only limited to the big ground breaking ide as, creative workshops and product based companies. Innovation is often small, i ncremental changes to products, services and processes. The innovation involves all the managers from different departments. This needs to be planned and manage d as a core business covering all parts of a business. This needs to be integrat ed at the strategic and operational levels. The activities of the innovation nee d 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. Inn ovation can be built into business, at three levels. The three levels are the an nual business planning process, quarterly innovation and day-to-day activities. Innovation is managed through some sort of platform or application. There are tw o types of innovation tools that are, an electronic suggestion scheme, and a man agement system controlling the innovation process. The management of the innovat ion system need to be given to the senior management to control the overall syst em of innovation. The best practices and tools are applied consistently and appr opriately across the organisation. Any platform should encourage for the learnin g activity as a core feature. Installing the innovation culture in any of the co mpany has leaders and teams with ability and commitment. In order to create cult ure of continuous innovation, the organisation requires leadership and commitmen t from the senior management team. The management team also see that some staff members in the organisation are rewarded for the innovative ideas they put in. T he senior management need to encourage the innovative ideas from the staff.

Q5. What is the importance of technology diffusion? What are the benefits of tec hnology absorption? Answer:Importance of technology diffusion Technology diffusion plays a major rol e in most of the countries today. The barriers to technology diffusion help us t o determine the magnitude of technology diffusion. These barriers determine the volumes of diffusion. Diffusion enlarges the set of available technologies and i ncreases the productivity of the country. In case of diffusion, productivity is determined by the domestic technology in the production country and the diffusio n technology from other countries. The technology diffusion plays more important role in the sector of goods that are not tradable, than the sector with the tra dable goods. The free technology diffusion generates more gains compared to that of the free merchandise trade. We can increase the merchandise trade by removin g the diffusion barriers since the countries achieve higher productivity by taki ng the technology from the diffusion process. A well-managed technology diffusio n system enables an organisation to plan its technology development projects in a more meaningful manner as well as transfer the technologies more successfully. Such an approach results in better returns for the investments made in R&D and technology development systems. Benefits of technology absorption The benefits t hat we get from technology absorption exercises, as evidenced by Government and industry experiences so far. These benefits are: Repeated collaborations for the same product/ process are avoided. Acquisition of further technologies becomes selective. Ability is developed to un package the technology. Savings can be aff ected in foreign exchange due to indigenisation /use of indigenous alternatives. Effective utilisation is made of available indigenous research expertise and fa cilities to achieve the desired results. Know-why and technology upgradation cap abilities are built-up. Exports are increased. Technically competent groups of s cientists and engineers trained in technology absorption get matured and strengt hened.

 The base for technological self-reliance is enhanced. We gain the benefits of te chnology diffusion, ranging from R&D services to the larger sales. Technology di ffusion helps in sustaining the growth of the company through technical strength . Many developing countries, including India, have liberalised their industrial policies in the recent past. In the wake of the liberalised nature of New Indust rial Policy and other policy measures in Trade and Finance, it has become impera tive for industry to accelerate its R&D efforts to meet the emerging competitive environment. While acquisition of technology is now easier, commensurate R&D ef forts will simultaneously be needed to absorb and upgrade the acquired technolog y in order to become internationally competitive. The thrust as underlined below need to be ensured for effective implementation, absorption and upgradation of imported technology. Industry should attempt to obtain best available technology closest to international trends and provide R&D at the stage of project plannin g. Speedy indigenisation of raw materials and components. Efforts for unpackagin g and indigenisation of tailor-made equipment in the acquired technology. Enhanc ing exports of products based on absorbed and upgraded technology. Continuous tr aining of research personnel in India and abroad. Use of national and internatio nal research facilities and expertise. Involving users, suppliers of components and materials, research organisations in undertaking absorption exercises. Q6. Explain the implementation of new technology. Briefly describe the automatio n decisions. Answer:Implementation of New Technology We know that planning is the key to succ ess of a project. In the same manner, a sound planning is essential for the succ ess of any technologys implementation. The failures that are likely to arise duri ng the implementation process may be due to the poor planning or inadequate reso urces. Valuing the conflicts will facilitate the organisation to keep away from these problems, and for the management, to anticipate the likely trouble spots a nd ease it accordingly. These vital preliminary 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 organisation. The whole implementation process involves the complete business p rocess and/or academic practice, consumer services, communication with suppliers and a relationship among all other engrossed stakeholders. There are a number o f less-substantial activities, which are critical and people those are involved must : - Have an understanding of the organisation predominantly, in terms of it s traditions and principles are essential. - The underlying principle of any new system implementation should be able to provide all the better services to all concerned through it. - This information has to be conversed to all concerned pa rties. - A complete review of every business processes and, where required, acad emic practice, and developing and introducing new policies before tuning the sys tem to meet the decided requirements should be undertaken. - The complete approv al of the difficulty and flexibility of the system should be determined. - The i nbuilt dangers of customisation of any software should be understood. - A thorou gh system test procedures should be conducted, while accepting the likely need f or software malfunction and improvements. - The training and development to be c onducted for the internal staff should be planned in advance. - The users must b e trained, to use the system. - The users must be trained, to identify faults an d correct freely. - The essential nature of system documents has to be accepted and retain accordingly. Planning and implementation: A thorough plan with effici ent management is necessary for success, and to work against the fear of high co sts, 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 t iny disturbance to the daily business, since it is practically possible. The var ious issues arising at this point of time will negatively affect the organisatio ns status, sometimes irreversibly, with all stakeholders. Considerations for impl ementation 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 enhan ces production that may be related to the total system performance and authorisi ng employees. A competitive edge will make the clients and customers more indepe ndent. 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 poss ibly combine several functions, partners, or flow of data that will lead to a ef fective business. Be cautious: If the new chosen technology provides revenue to your business, then it is necessary to be careful while making any major modific ations in the new technology. Being cautious does not merely mean that you shoul d 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 h ad 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 th e impact on cash flow, the relationships with the customers become weak. Hencefo rth, you should be aggressive to increase the competitive chances to grow the pr ofit and performance of your business. At the same time, you must be careful eve n while implementing changes that may affect your core business contributions, c ustomers, or billing. Be quick: It is important for you to be quick enough to im plement the small changes to your chosen technology and to supervise their impac t. There should not be any delay, when it comes to performance improvement, inte rnal proposal for simplifying routines or improving customer performance. We mus t follow a set of routines, to design small changes, test changes and schedule t o bring consistent enhancements. It is pretty often, the minor improvements enco mpass 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 centre 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 at tention 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 o ther side, you must avoid focusing on common ground, also conserve the primary p rocesses until the changes have been tested on some of the more difficult and le ss used utilities. There will be remarkable information to be achieved with the experience and less effect on business by concentrating on most composite and le ast 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 acco unts, customer information, intellectual belongings, monetary information, healt h information, or employee information stored automatically, available on a netw ork, 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 as sociated documents by means of a security or privacy specialist. From this discu ssion, we can say the technology plays a significant role in organisations world wide accomplishment. A well-organised management of people is crucial to the

successful implementation and use of new technical systems. The management shoul d take the responsibility to support the commitment to the new system. If the ma nagement supports a new technology, the employees will be liable to assist with the functioning. This proves to be right, while they understand that the success and sometimes survival of the organisation along with their potential security depends on the adapted new procedure.[1] 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 def ined decision situations. The automation decisions act like legal support system s that instantaneously solve and offer solutions to the recurring organisation p roblems. They are directly related to business informatics and business analytic s. The automated decisions are basically dependent on business rules. These rule s can be shaped or activated by business analytics. One of the components of aut omation decision support is rules-engine. For the purpose of operational decisio n making, a rules-engine is used. The engine employs actionable analytics and bu siness rules to make and deliver adapted alert. In addition, it relates the busi ness intelligence to business users or to create and deliver action messages for processing by operational applications. To handle a particular business situati on, it produces alerts and messages which might contain the announcement, warnin gs 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 t o the client or in providing credit cards, or to calculate the risk occurred in a particular business transaction. The current automation design decision system s are well suited for the decisions that have to be made often and rapidly, by t he use of information that is available electronically. The chief consideration is that the knowledge and decision criteria used in these systems have to be hig hly structured. If specialists are capable of readily codifying the decision rul es, and if premium data are accessible, the conditions are favorable for automat ing the decision. The rule engines are implanted in a number of software product s, including web application servers, and business intelligence tools, where the y are sometimes called intelligent agents. The sophisticated stand alone rule en gines are building up and advertised by the vendors. To fully exploit the advant age 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 c an 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 e xample given in figure 6.1.

Figure 6.1: An example for Automated Decision Making The upper portion of the fi gure illustrates an easy functioning workflow for dealing out a customer order. This workflow is used so as to establish the indications in the operational proc ess, 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 Obj ect Distribution Server (ODS) or a data warehouse. The ODS acts like an objectif ied information used by the clients to obtain and contribute knowledge. Event ca pture can 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 interface[2]. 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 identi fication of the problem and decide what action to take. If automation is necessa ry, the action workflow possibly will be implanted in the rules engine, which wo uld produce the suitable action messages to be sent to the functioning environme nt.