Learn problems of technology transfer faced by Small and Medium Enterprises with Problems during technology validation and selection stage.
Problems of technology transfer
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) often face challenges when trying to use new technologies. In 2007, researchers Jagoda and Ramanathan identified these difficulties and grouped them into categories.
Choosing the Right Technology:
- Picking the wrong technology because of mistakes in understanding how it fits the business.
- Facing high costs for buying, installing, running and maintaining the technology.
- Dealing with complex technologies that are hard to understand and use.
- Needing to change the technology a lot to make it work in the local area.
Planning for Technology Transfer:
- Technology sellers not realizing how hard it is to transfer technology to a developing country.
- Not fully understanding what the business that gets the technology really needs.
- Leaving out the managers from the business that will use the technology in the planning.
- Focusing too much on buying equipment and not enough on getting the right skills and information.
- Thinking the receiving business is better with the technology than it actually is.
- Not estimating how many people will want to use the things made with the new technology.
- Having different goals and plans between the giver and receiver of the technology.
- Using the wrong methods to make the transfer work.
Negotiating Problems:
- Using different ways to negotiate and not understanding each other methods.
- Not trusting each other during negotiations.
- Having different goals during negotiations.
- Not agreeing on how much things should cost or how to sell them.
- Both sides wanting results too quickly.
Implementing Technology Transfer:
- Not having skilled people to manage the technology transfer.
- Not trusting the technology from the giver.
- Not being able to make the technology work as well as it should.
- Getting materials needed for the technology too late, which slows things down.
- Using materials from the local area that are not good quality and cost a lot.
- Not keeping track of how well the technology is working.
- Spending more money than expected because the technology isn’t working well.
You may also like to read Approved Regulatory Bodies and Agencies in Technology Transfer.