Identification and evaluation of innovation opportunities emerging from technology and business trends

Abstract

New technology emerges faster than ever before, and the development is increasing exponentially. The speed of development is too rapid for businesses to investigate and identify potential value from them. There is a need for a culture of innovation and technology adoption and must be treated as the backbone of the company’s value chain. This master will explore a systematic approach to investigate and evaluate innovation opportunities emerging from technology and business trends. The goal of the project is to prove that a systematic method may assist the industry in identifying and evaluating opportunities to achieve competitive advantages. The method consisted of three main parts; 1. Selection and screening of industry 2. Screening of technology trends and business trends with potential for disrupting the industry 3. Identification and evaluation of ideas. The selected industry was Norwegian salmon farming and segment was salmon sea farming production. In total, 14 ideas were elaborated in this thesis. 9 ideas were rejected by the first screening. 5 ideas reached the second screening where 3 ideas were rejected at this point. 2 ideas cleared the second screening had potential to be a business opportunity and was evaluated in a business model canvas. The research prove that it is possible to systematically identify and screen innovation opportunity emerging from technology and business trends today. Time and access to information is identified as the two main enablers to increasing quality of the ideas, in addition to selecting an industry with innovation potential.