Navigating the Innovation Ecosystems: Strategies for Effective Technology Alliance Management

In an innovation ecosystem, many diverse types of companies and other organizations contribute to developing new technology for a new or existing market. To bring such a technology to market these organizations may want to collaborate to improve the probability of success. Some of the several types of organizations that may wish to participate in the collaboration include:

• Technology Companies: Organizations that are developing technology or components of the technology necessary for a market solution
• Government Agencies
• R&D Institutions
• Academic Institutions

To effectively collaborate and help reduce antitrust/anti-competitive concerns and provide proper intellectual property (IP) protection, the collaboration will often take the form of a technology alliance or consortium established as a not-for-profit (and open) organization.

A key factor in developing a technology solution that will be adopted by the market i.e., a "success," is ensuring that representatives both from (1) different areas of the innovation ecosystem and (2) the different pieces of the value (or service delivery) chain are participating in the collaboration. Note that the various parts of the value chain comprise the technology companies in the innovation ecosystem and the end users.

Therefore, the technology alliance needs to motivate the different players to participate in the collaboration — whether it is joining the not-for-profit organization or participating via some other mechanism. Inventures' "best practices" that help ensure as many players as possible are participating in the collaboration include:

• Creating compelling member value proposition(s): Ensuring that the proposed activities, initiatives, and outputs of the collaboration provide value to the prospective member organizations.
• Designing a membership structure consisting of multiple tiers: Different organizations, especially technology companies at different places in the value chain may have dissimilar value propositions. Therefore, a tiered membership structure allows the collaboration to construct value propositions with varying levels of participation and costs for joining.
• Enabling end-user input/feedback: End-users and other decision-makers like specifiers and/or integrators do not often find direct value in joining a technology alliance, so the organization needs to enable other mechanisms to facilitate input and feedback from those constituents. Opening requirements work groups, feedback workshops, or member conferences for these members of the value chain should be considered and implemented when appropriate.
• Involving government agencies, research, and academic institutions: These types of organizations often have fewer financial resources to participate in technology alliances and/or have restrictions on participation, so if the collaboration members want to involve these organizations, then accommodations will need to be made in the membership structure (e.g., via details in the governance documents for the collaboration).

In summary, while there are many factors in developing an effective strategy for effective technology alliance management, Inventures believes that having the right organizations participating in the collaboration is one of the most important. Having the right organizations ensures that the breadth and depth of domain expertise are available to develop the technology solution and provides credibility to the collaboration.