Bonnie Hinze is a Technology Strategy expert. Her company committed $1 billion to expanding manufacturing plants to meet the increased demand anticipated from new product introductions and asked her to take charge and see that the technology required to accomplish the needed happened. Unfortunately, the growth demands lacked organizational buy-in, prioritization, and resourcing.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

$\"Bonnie$

Bonnie Hinze, Senior Research & Development Executive<\/p><\/div>\n

Bonnie initiated and chaired discussions with R&D and the corporate innovations group to categorize the primary customer needs that required clarification and quantification by executing 9-step technology road mapping process.\u00a0 “I prioritized customer needs, identified competitors, benchmarked competitor performance against each of the customer needs, and identified lucrative product whitespaces and corresponding critical technologies to enable breakthrough innovation,\u201d Hinze said.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

She also specified four innovation focus areas along with multiple technologies within each and prioritized technology projects for the next five years to enable expected product launches. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

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\u201cThe technology roadmap steps I have found successful throughout my career are:\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

1. Identify the customer’s needs<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

2. Translate the needs into product features<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

3. Rank the product features in order of importance to the customer<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

4. Identify competitors and their market share<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

5. Benchmark competitor product performance against each product feature<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

6. Identify greatest leverage points for enhancing product performance<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

7. Identify technologies that will enable product features<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

8. Rate the impact of each technology on every product feature<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

9. Determine each competitor’s strength for every technology<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

By implementing these steps, in three years we achieved a 100% increase in the number of resourced long term technology initiatives and a 90% activation rate for projects completing technical feasibility (stage-gate) within six months.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n