Technology Scouting in China: For identifying cost reduction and opportunities for innovation

Abstract: Title: Technology Scouting in China For identifying cost reduction and opportunities for innovation Authors: Tor Blomdell and Oscar Örtendahl Tutors: Bengt Järrehult – Adjunct professor, Department of Packaging Logistic, Lund Institute of Technology Sigvald Harryson – Associate professor, Institute of Economic Research, Lund School of Economics and Management Lars Sickert - Technology Analyst, Technology Intelligence, Tetra Pak Issue of Study: Tetra Pak is facing increased competition and shrinking market shares in China, in order to meet these challenges they are investigating how to establish a technology intelligence function in China. However, only identifying intelligence is not enough. Companies are more likely to identify opportunities for innovation through collaboration with external associates. Moreover, when the intelligence is identified and acquired, companies need to overcome the knowing-doing gap and find processes for turning knowledge into action. Further, coping with the increased competition from emerging markets, companies need to identify new product, process, and service innovations in order to cannibalize themselves, thus staying competitive. Purpose: The purpose with this thesis is to examine (1) with whom companies are collaborating in order to identify different types of intelligence and (2) how companies are turning knowledge into action, thus creating organizational understanding and innovation impact. Method: During this thesis the abductive framework has been used, where the induction framework is used for handling empirics from the cases and the deduction framework for getting inputs from the theories. Together with the action research framework, these are the frameworks used for completing this master thesis. Conclusion: Throughout this thesis, the technology intelligence process has been discussed in accordance with the purpose of this thesis. Initial research indicates that external collaboration and digestion might be prerequisites for creating and finding low end disruptive innovation, thus facilitating reverse innovation from emerging markets. Two academic contributions have been developed by this thesis; the theory about listening posts is extended through the addition of knowledge brokers, which are entities spanning application, trends, and technology knowledge. Further, the theory about digestion was created, which is a compounded process that fills the knowing-doing gap, thus enabling action from knowledge. Key Words: technology intelligence, technology scouting, digestion, knowledge brokers, collaboration, intermediaries, listening posts, reverse innovation, reverse knowledge transfer, packaging industry