5. Final discussion and conclusions
5.7. Suggestions for future research
The overall extent of the thesis topic and its limited demarcation led to several ideas for future research. However, many ideas for further research that emerged during the literature review writing process turned out to have been already explored, e.g., usefulness of open innovation in R&D activities. Nevertheless, various topic ideas remained undiscovered and intriguing until the end of the writing process. The following could be future research topics:
• Licensing as an international commercialization strategy. Prior research suggests that licensing can facilitate internationalizing compared to plain product strategy (Chapter 2.2.3.).
• Combining born global theory with international commercialization process and looking for possible junction points and synergies.
• Creating a single commercialization process template to various international markets.
• Formulating an innovation strategy for a high technology product.
• The importance of codified knowledge compared to tacit knowledge as a facilitator in the mobilization of know-how between the stages of the commercialization process.
• Scenario planning of high technology companies: how companies create contingency plans for various outcomes in different commercialization phases.
• Conducting concise marketing for an innovative hard-to-define novelty product.
• The process of efficient and useful networking.
• Leveraging IPR in a commercialization strategy.
• Utilizing IPR in open innovation collaborations. The relationship between open innovation and strong IPR strategy could be further studied.
In addition to the above, it would be interesting to gain elaborative information of different commercialization process phases. In this research several phases of the commercialization process are addressed only briefly. Future research could delve deeper into any of the phases. For example, the beginning of commercialization process and how companies can practically activate interest of stakeholders while advancing in the process to subsequent stages.
Moreover, additional research is needed to further understand possibilities how companies can cope with rapid changes and unpredictability of high technology commercialization in the 2020s. Thus, future research could examine possibilities of flexible commercialization. How does it happen and what means and models are in already use?
Finally, it could be worthwhile studying the idea “multi-rail commercialization model”, i.e., having several simultaneous rails such as marketing, product development and commercialization and as a result forming a theoretical model of the process. Prior studies discussed in literature review did not specifically underline having multiple progress rails, but three case company interviewees underscored advancing multiple matters simultaneously. Therefore, this concept could be further elaborated and formulated as a theoretical model.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Interview questions Taustakysymykset:
1. Onko yrityksellänne yhteyttä tai taustaa liittyen Itä-Suomen Yliopistoon, Savonia- ammattikorkeakouluun sekä Business Center Pohjois-Savoon?
2. Tähtäsikö yrityksenne alusta lähtien kansainvälisille markkinoille?
3. Miten usein yrityksenne tuotetta päivitetään tai siitä tehdään uusittu versio?
Teema 1: kaupallistamisprosessi
4. Miten uuden tuotteen kaupallistamisprosessi alkaa yrityksessänne ja mitä toimenpiteitä silloin tehdään?
5. Miten pyritte varmistamaan prosessin alkuvaiheessa että idealla on kaupallista potentiaalia?
6. Mitä kaupallistamisprosessissa tapahtuu yrityksessänne edellä kuvatun alkuvaiheen jälkeen?
7. Millainen on kaupallistamisprosessin loppuvaihe yrityksessänne ja mitä toimenpiteitä se sisältää?
8. Miten teette yrityksessänne kaupallistamisprosessin vaiheesta toiseen siirtymiset?
9. Eteneekö kaupallistamisprosessi yrityksessänne selkeästi vaiheesta toiseen ja onko siinä toistoa, edestakaisin liikkumista tai päällekkäisyyttä?
10. Poikkeaako kaupallistamisprosessi eri kansainvälisissä lokaatioissa? Miten?
11. Miten kaupallistamisprosessi eroaa 2020-luvulla siitä mitä se oli esimerkiksi 5, 10 tai 15 vuotta sitten?
12. Miten digitalisaatio on muuttanut yrityksenne tuotteiden kaupallistamista? Mitä hyviä tai huonoja seuraamuksia näet? Miten hyödynnätte digitalisaatioita prosessissa?
Teema 2: Ongelmat
13. Miten yleisesti kuvailisit korkean teknologian kaupallistamisprosessiin liittyviä haasteita ja ongelmia?
14. Miten kuvailisit rahoitukseen liittyviä kaupallistamisprosessin haasteita? Miten olette pyrkineet ratkaisemaan ongelmia ja oletteko kokeneet keinot toimiviksi?
15. Miten kuvailisit markkinointiin liittyviä kaupallistamisprosessin haasteita? Miten olette pyrkineet ratkaisemaan ongelmia ja oletteko kokeneet keinot toimiviksi?
16. Miten kuvailisit johtamiseen ja hallintoon liittyviä kaupallistamisprosessin haasteita? Miten olette pyrkineet ratkaisemaan ongelmia ja oletteko kokeneet keinot toimiviksi?
17. Miten kuvailisit kansainvälistymiseen liittyviä kaupallistamisprosessin haasteita? Miten olette pyrkineet ratkaisemaan ongelmia ja oletteko kokeneet keinot toimiviksi?
18. Miten lähdette ratkaisemaan haastetta kun uusi tuote ei ole valmiiksi loppukäyttäjille tuttu eikä ole olemassa kolmansien osapuolten sertifiointia tai stardardisointeja?
19. Miten kuvailisit korkean teknologian kaupallistamisprosessin uusia haasteita 2020-luvulla verrattuna tilanteeseen esimerkiksi 5, 10 tai 15 vuotta sitten?
Teema 3: Ratkaisuja sisäisistä ja ulkoisista resursseista
20. Miten teknologiayritykset voivat parantaa omia sisäisiä toimintojaan ja suoriutumistaan kaupallistamisprosessin haasteiden ratkaisemiseksi?
21. Miten teknologiayritykset voisivat kehittää kykyään ennakoida tulevia mahdollisia muutoksia markkinoiden tarpeissa ja tehdä tarvittavia muutoksia omissa tuotteissa tai prosesseissa?
22. Minkälaista yrityksen ulkopuolista apua tai tukipalveluja (esim valtio, yliopisto, kiihdyttämöt, hackathon, asiantuntijoiden mentorointi) olette käyttäneet kaupallistamisessa?
23. Minkälaiset yrityksen ulkopuoliset resurssit ja tukipalvelut kokemuksenne mukaan auttavat yrityksiä kaupallistamisen edistämisessä?
24. Miten verkostoidutte ja sen jälkeen ylläpidätte tai parannatte asemaanne verkostoissa?
25. Käytättekö immateriaalioikeussuojauksia apuna kaupallistamisessa? Miten?