Table of Contents
2.0 Identified Technological Innovation. 2
2.1 Where the Technology came from.. 3
3.0 Firms that Lead to Comercialisation. 4
3.1 Early Adopters of Technology Innovation. 5
1.0 Introduction
In the current highly competitive business environment, an embrace in technological innovation is the single most critical driver for achieving competitive success in most industries. Adopting the definition of Siallagan et al. (2019) a technological innovation represent a new/improved product or process whose technological characteristics are significantly distinct from before. The implemented technological product innovations can be new products (product innovations) or processes in application (process innovations) which could introduced to a market. From a broad context, the examples of technological innovations are as illustrated in figure 1;
Figure 1: Examples of technology innovations
As evidenced in Yao et al. (2020) the common characteristic of technological innovation is that it promote productivity and engage citizens in a new and better goods and services for improving their entire standards of living. This is evident from the module notes which highlighted that majority of the organisations which embrace technology innovation lead to over one-third sales on products development within last 5 years. Also, the organisations are able to manage their margins through provision of new, differentiated characteristics while efficiently manufacturing. In line with this background information, this report identifies a technological innovation. Based on information from a reputable media, the technology description in terms of its origin, commercialization and key challenges have been evaluated.
2.0 Identified Technological Innovation
To identify a technology innovation, it is noted to be a new or improved product or process whose technological characteristics are critically distinct from previously. This is supported by Kelly et al. (2021) report which identify them as being implemented in the form of new products (product innovations) or processes in application (process innovations) introduced to a business environment. Further, as evidenced in the module notes, the technology innovations could arise from multiple distinct sources and the linkages between them (see figure 2);
Figure 2: Sources of Technology Innovation
The Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) launched an $18 billion proposal to establish a system of large-scale data centers covering the Kingdom. The ministry specified that the government aims to transform Saudi Arabia into the actual data center hub for the zone and was in close contact with the private affiliates (Arab News, 2022). They included local and global investors to achieve the objective. Assistant Minister for telecom and digital infrastructure at MCIT Bassam Al-Bassam clarified that they are facilitating community advocates to play an increased role in the future action of Saudi Vision 2030. Also, to expand the development of hyper-scale remotely hosted data centers necessary to attract various digital investments, including cloud service operators, gaming publishers, video streaming assistance providers, and content delivery network (CDN) administrators to confine their services inside the Kingdom (Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, 2022). To evidence the relevance of the data centers, they have been developed to more than 22 colocation from the initial 6 areas in Saudi Arabia. The pace of growth is nevertheless in line with MIT News (2021) report which found that more than 80% of the technologies tend to improve at less than 25% annually. The 22 colocations are a substantial increase and growth positively impacting its relevance to the populations.
2.1 Where the Technology came from
From the insights sourced from the module notes that the governments investment in technology and innovation is in the areas of laboratories, science parks and incubators and grants from other public or private research organisations. According to Fleming et al. (2019), despite of existence of multiple mechanisms under interaction, the government harnessed innovations have a positive implication in fueling innovation which eventually lead to job and industrial competitiveness and entrepreneurial success. Similarly, for the Saudi Data Center Technology Innovation, it would positively contribute to supporting entire computation, data storage, and network and business applications for enterprises. This is supported by Oxford Business Group (2022) report which found that public and private sector in Saudi Arabia leverage from strong interests of managing services since it offers an opportunity for businesses and agencies to concentrate on core operations and growth aspects. This is contrary to investments on in-house services hence improving overall efficiency. Hence, the technology innovation can be identified as coming from the government. Nevertheless, it is a creation of an intense collaboration with the private sector organisations. The government and other institutions investments are identified by Businesswire (2021) to increase upto $1180 by year 2026 which is a CAGR of 7.85% in years 2021 to 2026.