Technology can be an enabler
Many individuals mistakenly believe that it is technology which drives innovation. Yet from the definitions above, that is obviously not the case. It is opportunity which defines innovation and technology which enables innovation. Think of the classic "Build an improved mousetrap" example taught in most business schools. You might have the technology to create an improved mousetrap, but when you yourself have no mice or the old mousetrap is useful, there's no opportunity and then your technology to create an improved one becomes irrelevant. On the other hand, if you should be overrun with mice then your opportunity exists to innovate something using your technology.
Another example, one with which I am intimately familiar, are consumer electronics startup companies. I've been related to both the ones that succeeded and the ones that failed. Each possessed unique leading edge technologies. The difference was opportunity. Those that failed could not find the ability to produce a meaningful innovation using their technology. In reality to survive, these companies had to morph oftentimes into something totally different and if they were lucky they might make the most of derivatives of these original technology. http://yourtechcrunch.com/ More regularly than not, the initial technology wound up in the scrap heap. Technology, thus, can be an enabler whose ultimate value proposition is to create improvements to the lives. In order to be relevant, it needs to be utilized to produce innovations which are driven by opportunity.
Technology as a competitive advantage?
Many companies list a technology as you of these competitive advantages. Is this valid? In some instances yes, but Typically no.
Technology develops along two paths - an evolutionary path and a revolutionary path.
A revolutionary technology is the one which enables new industries or enables methods to problems that have been previously not possible. Semiconductor technology is a good example. Not merely made it happen spawn new industries and products, however it spawned other revolutionary technologies - transistor technology, integrated circuit technology, microprocessor technology. All which provide most of the products and services we consume today. But is semiconductor technology a competitive advantage? Taking a look at the number of semiconductor firms that exist today (with new ones forming every day), I'd say not. What about microprocessor technology? Again, no. A lot of microprocessor companies out there. What about quad core microprocessor technology? Not as numerous companies, but you've Intel, AMD, ARM, and a number of companies building custom quad core processors (Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, etc). So again, little of a competitive advantage. Competition from competing technologies and easy access to IP mitigates the perceived competitive advantage of any particular technology. Android vs iOS is a good exemplory instance of how this works. Both systems are derivatives of UNIX. Apple used their technology to introduce iOS and gained an early market advantage. However, Google, utilizing their variant of Unix (a competing technology), swept up relatively quickly. The causes for this lie not in the underlying technology, however in how the merchandise made possible by those technologies were brought to advertise (free vs. walled garden, etc.) and the differences in the strategic visions of every company.https://arstechnician.com/
Evolutionary technology is the one which incrementally builds upon the beds base revolutionary technology. But by it's very nature, the incremental change now is easier for a competitor to complement or leapfrog. Take for instance wireless cellphone technology. Company V introduced 4G products prior to Company A and while it might have had a brief term advantage, when Company A introduced their 4G products, the bonus due to technology disappeared. The consumer returned to choosing Company A or Company V predicated on price, service, coverage, whatever, however, not predicated on technology. Thus technology could have been relevant in the temporary, however in the future, became irrelevant.https://techwaa.com/
In today's world, technologies have a tendency to quickly become commoditized, and within any particular technology lies the seeds of its death.
Technology's Relevance
This article was written from the prospective of a conclusion customer. From a developer/designer standpoint things get murkier. The further one is removed from the technology, the less relevant it becomes. To a developer, the technology will look like a product. An enabling product, but something nonetheless, and thus it is highly relevant. Bose runs on the proprietary signal processing technology to enable products that meet a set of market requirements and thus the technology and what it enables is highly relevant to them. https://techsitting.com/ Their customers are more concerned with how it sounds, what's the cost, what's the product quality, etc., and less with how it is achieved, thus the technology used is much less highly relevant to them.
