The world today is highly dynamic – things never stand still here. Keeping up with the latest technologies and the biggest industry trends is no longer just a matter of personal curiosity but a prerequisite for success.
Progressing expansion through the market allows organizations to remain relevant, retain existing customers while also drawing new clients, strengthen their positions, enhance their influence, increase revenue, and more. There’s a myriad of benefits.
At some point, you might be wondering how, where, and when to evolve your product. And this is when custom development comes to your mind. But it’s not always the solution.
Sometimes developing a custom solution makes no sense with the time frame and budget available. Or the majority of features are quite generic with only a small portion of them being advanced and custom. Spending valuable resources on building another alternative to an already existing product is pretty worthless.
But you might plan to evolve with a robust custom software solution in the future. So why not test the product hypothesis before investing huge funds in the development? Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?
Consider technology scouting as an affordable and quick option.
We can help you discover solutions that resolve your business problems in a structured and highly efficient way.
Interesting? Then look through the information you need to know.
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What is Tech Scouting
Tech scouting is a proactive strategy for organizations looking to drive innovation in an increasingly dynamic and competitive business environment. This is a structured process aimed at bringing effective solutions to resolve the actual business problems and meet the core business needs. This multifaceted approach helps companies identify promising emerging technologies out there and choose the most suitable “foundation” for their products.
Here’s a closer look at how tech scouting fulfills these critical functions:
- Tech scouting is like a radar system continually scanning the horizon for emerging technologies, trends, and disruptions that could impact a particular industry or business sector.
- Tech scouting provides a clear understanding and a structured plan of further actions. It forms a detailed Backend and Frontend technologies stack proposal targeted at achieving the project goals. The latest technological practices for such solutions as well as the technologies used in the selected solution are taken into account.
- Tech scouting triggers the formation of strategic partnerships and collaborations with external stakeholders such as startups, research institutions, industry experts, and fellow innovators. This brings fresh perspectives, out-of-the-box ideas, and deep core knowledge to the table.
- Tech scouting plays a pivotal role in expanding organizations’ IP portfolios. By identifying external technologies, inventions, and patents that align with their strategic goals, organizations can acquire or license these assets.
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Benefits of Tech Scouting
Tech scouting has been actively proving its effectiveness for organizations across multiple industries. These services are much more than simply leveraging external innovation and technology trends – they bring a huge pack of other opportunities.
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Still hesitate whether to invest resources in tech scouting? Here are a few most significant benefits to erase your doubts.
Innovating and saving valuable resources
Inventing from scratch requires a lot of effort, time, and funds, and you still cannot be 100% sure of the innovation’s success. With technology scouting, you can cut expenses associated with product development and enjoy faster time-to-market. We will research all the available foundations and provide you with a flexible development plan for an MVP or full product.
Find your perfect match
With such a wide range of ready-made solutions, how do you know which one to apply? We’ll lead you through the search for the right decision. An exhaustive analysis of the tech scouting findings lets us distinguish the most feature-wise, technology-wise, and supportability-wise solution for your project.
Long-term gains
With technology scouting, the further processes of migration from any software foundation used initially to a completely custom application will be much faster. Based on the previous analyses, our business analysts will uncover the future possibilities for custom-coded app creation.
Increased business value
The market is highly competitive these days. Those who run faster win. You must act quicker than competitors to get ahead of the game. Besides, technology scouting gives you a chance to test the product hypothesis in real life with minimum resources spent.
Market expansion
Tech scouting opens up new markets and revenue streams. A company gets a chance to flourish and even expand into entirely new markets by identifying cutting-edge technologies that align with its core competencies.
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Challenges and Pitfalls in Tech Scouting
Technology scouting, while critical for innovation, is not without its challenges. It’s not all smooth, you should know. There are several frequent stumbling blocks you might encounter. But as long as you’re forewarned, you can overcome them with the least of hurt.
Backed by our vast experience, we’ve compiled a list of the most common bottlenecks you might come across while tech scouting.
Identifying high-value opportunities
What to look for? Where to start? How to be the first to spot the most promising opportunities and get ahead of the curve? This can make you confused because tech scouting is not always straightforward.
Information overload
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with so much information from numerous sources. Sifting through these volumes can be both effort and time-consuming. We conduct a thorough analysis of every possible technological advancement on the market in order to not miss key insights.
Global reach
In such an increasingly globalized world, tapping into the huge worldwide marketplace to spot possibly profitable opportunities can be complex.
Data privacy and security
The adoption of new technologies can bring data privacy and security concerns. That is why, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements and protecting sensitive information must be prioritized.
Protecting intellectual property
Acquiring new technologies often involves intellectual property considerations, including patents, licensing, and legal agreements. You must never ignore these.
Seamless information flow
Continuous communication is a must. We first select the right communication channels and set up processes to ensure smooth information exchange between scouts and stakeholders.
Before you get worried, we should say that all the problems listed above can be minimized or completely eliminated with proper and well-thought-out management. At Pecode, we can help you navigate various obstacles to recognize and adopt the most suitable solutions effectively.
So now, let’s take a closer look at our tech scouting procedure.
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Tech Scouting Process
As you’ve reached this section, it goes without saying that technology scouting offers a huge pack of gains. However, it does so provided it is conducted properly – as per requirements.
There are several typical stages included in the innovative technology scouting cycle. Take a closer look.
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Solution research
This is where the exciting journey begins. First, you need to be aware of all the possibilities that you can potentially make use of. This means diving deep into the extensive pool of options and looking for the best one. We will carefully study your product concept and vision and then move on to the scouting process right away.
Our experienced business analysts investigate the market and pick up the solutions that may serve as a foundation for your app. Then they compile a list of the most suitable solutions based on their features, monetization types (SaaS, white-label, or open source), and other critical factors.
A thorough analysis is required in order to get a comprehensive understanding of each solution’s benefits and pitfalls. This way you can see which one meets your business objectives perfectly.
After all these processes are successfully completed, you will have a shortlist of 2-3 prioritized solutions that align with your core requirements.
Functional decomposition
It’s high time the solutions from your shortlist selected earlier underwent functional decomposition. This is how you can examine all their features in the slightest detail and see which of your business needs can be covered by each solution. Sounds a bit complicated but our experts do the work for you. We will conduct a comparative analysis of the decomposed features to select the solution covering as much of your feature set as possible.
Estimation and planning of the development
As the scouting process is over, the estimation gets updated. Based on the findings, specialists define which features can be transferred from a foundation solution without changes, which will be altered somehow, and which must be developed from scratch. This is essential for the most accurate estimation. Furthermore, this allows us to understand whose effort will be required.
With all the adjustments introduced during the previous steps, we can make an optimal team set proposal, relevant tech stack proposal for back and front-end technologies as well as the scope delivery timeline.
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Top Trends in Tech Scouting
Technology scouting is a highly dynamic field so staying abreast of the latest trends is paramount for organizations seeking to bring innovative technologies to their workflows. We explore the emerging trends and best practices in technology scouting and licensing to help businesses achieve their strategic goals.
Here are some of the most prominent trends to know:
- Open Innovation platforms streamline tech scouting processes as well as technology licensing by connecting technology seekers and service providers globally. Tapping into an extensive pool of technologies, solutions, and experts is much easier now.
- Artificial intelligence, Big data, and NLP are applied in order to automate and facilitate technology scouting and licensing activities while taking their quality to the next level. Conduct a thorough market analysis, process data, get meaningful insights, and assess technologies as per your key requirements.
- Scouting as a Service is a top-notch approach to tech scouting, where organizations leverage external expertise and specialized scouting services to unlock emerging technologies and innovation opportunities.
- Semantic and contextual search. The first one deals with keywords while the second one focuses on the context they are used in. This way results are checked for accuracy and precision.
- Automating deal flow saves a good deal of time but still ensures relevant solutions are delivered to you regularly.
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Summing Up
The truth is that choosing the difficult path does not always mean doing better or achieving greater results. Sometimes simplicity brings more efficiency.
Custom product development is not a fits-for-all solution. Not all solutions need to be created from scratch. In some cases, it is much more effective to utilize a ready-made solution to perfectly fit into the budget and time frame as well as to meet the core business requirements.
Say that tech scouting is a fast-growing trend without saying it is a fast-growing trend. The biggest industry leaders from all around the globe harness the power of tech scouting. Giant corporations actively scout for new technologies and out-of-the-box ideas and engage in prospective partnerships to fuel their innovative initiatives and bring cutting-edge solutions to their customers.
Undoubtedly, tech scouting is what allows companies to remain successful in the highly competitive landscape.
At Pecode, we guide businesses through the huge ever-evolving world of innovations and help uncover new promising opportunities. We will scale up your innovation programs so you can stay ahead of the competition. Armed with our extensive experience, we make tech scouting seamless and stressless for you.
Can’t wait to embrace innovations? Then contact us via hello@pecodesoftware.com ASAP and let’s get down to business right away!
