Long-Term R&D Strategy and Planning
- Resource Type
- RTM Publication
- Publish Date
- 02/26/2020
- Authors
- Kent M. Young, Terry L. Rosenstiel, Pam Henderson
- Topics
- Strategic Planning, Finance for R+D, Managing Innovation and R+D
- Associated Event
- Publication
The rapid pace of change makes the future increasingly difficult to predict. Companies are under stress as they seek to make investments that protect against disruption and create new opportunities. This stress is magnified for R&D, which allocates resources to longer-term technology platforms supporting future business growth. R&D must invest in platforms that extend beyond the time frames for which businesses scout insights on where markets, customers, and competitors are going. This article focuses on the state of R&D planning in longer-term time frames where insights are limited. We present the study results and provide a scorecard for evaluating the maturity of a strategy function.
Kent was born and raised in Nova Scotia, received his B.Sc. degree with First Class Honors from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and a Ph.D in Chemistry from MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He worked in materials and product development at Polaroid and Parker Hannifin prior to joining Sherwin Williams. Kent recently retired from Sherwin-Williams and resides in the United States
Terry Rosenstial is a seasoned Innovation Advisor at NewEdge, leveraging over four decades of expertise in technology commercialization and strategic innovation. He previously directed the innovation pipeline at USG Corporation, focusing on building science and technology commercialization. Terry managed USG’s Ceilings and Performance Surfaces Laboratories, where he led significant product and technology developments. He holds a Master’s degree in Engineering Management from Northwestern University and a Bachelor’s in Chemistry from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Known for his visionary leadership, Terry has contributed to numerous patents and serves as a Board of Trustee member at The American Institute of Baking.
Dr. Pam Henderson is author, entrepreneur, former-professor and international speaker. She founded NewEdge in 2002, a business and innovation strategy firm that anchors growth in opportunity. She served on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon and later at Washington State University where she worked with the National Lab system to commercialization over 100 early stage technologies. This inspired her approach to Opportunity Thinking described in her book “You can kill an Idea, but you can’t kill an opportunity” which is now being revised for Fast Company. NewEdge leads clients in Future Proofing through a robust trends practice, driving growth from company DNA, setting North Star Visions for businesses and innovation, identifying opportunities and translating them into platforms and roadmaps. Her team of consultants, with their ecosystem of over 4000 experts, have driven growth for over 75 Fortune 500 companies as well as smaller family-owned firms and start-ups including transformational work for John Deere, Harley-Davidson, P&G, PepsiCo, Eastman Chemical, DSM, and The North Face.