An approach to systematically derive a diversification into emergent markets driven by technological core-competencies

Traditional medium-sized enterprises are often known as hidden champions. However, existing target markets do not increasingly afford anymore the essential annual growth by well-established product innovation processes. Despite the need for changes it is important for traditional companies to keep production sites as well as workers. Consequentially the question arises on how to devise new products based on the existing technological competencies which are forward-looking and satisfy anticipated requirements of emergent markets. With a translation of technology-functions derived from technological core-competencies into market-functions by taxonomy new high-potential industry sectors were identified. In order to prioritize potential interesting sectors systematically trend analyses and descriptions of industry specific level of maturity were used. Thousands of secondary literature documents were automated screened and annotated in order to build up the data basis for trends and level of maturity descriptions. Considering the anticipated developments in each attractive industry sector a multi-stage creative and synectics based workshop process is used to conceive of new potential applications in those attractive sectors. Finally, detailed information on preselected markets are compiled and used to build up business cases which frame the decision fundament to a successful diversification strategy. Within the paper this procedure is descripted with the help of a case study.