Abstract
Increasingly original technology has become required as a basis of product development in industry. Two major factors were identified which affect the efficiency of original research and its successful commercialization: the maturity of the target product in the market and the competitive power acquired through the research. A "strategic research map" was constructed by combining a "research portfolio", which has these two factors as the X and Y axes, along with the well-known product portfolio. Maturity was expressed in terms of the embryonic and growth phases, the first half of the product life cycle. Competitive power was evaluated using four factors: potential, advantage (comprising precedence in time and excellence in concept), speciality, and advance in research. The map visualizes the present status as well as the target of a research project, permits tracing and prediction of its progress, and represents the distribution of research resources, thus providing researchers, supervisors and managers with a common ground to discuss the strategy and tactics of research and commercialization.
