First of all it’s important to explain two distinct concepts: roadmapping and strategic planning.
Strategic planning is a business process that combines market analysis and specific needed skills to meet a requirement. It is the implementation of the planning that generate results.
Roadmapping is an approach to identify, map and define strategies, objectives and actions for innovation in your business. It’s the linkage among all the decision making strategic and tactical processes.
We can compare business strategies to war strategies:
Milestones and Goals: For example, in the next three years, will the percent to growth of your business come from new products?
Battle zone: Which markets, technologies and products do you want to attack? Where will you focus on your work?
Attack plan: How do you plan to win battles? Will you be innovative or conservative? Do you have a global or a local plan? Will you attack alone or with a partner?
Implementation: How many soldiers will you use in each battle?
Using roadmapping, we can find a way to organize and answer the following questions:
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- Which new products or product segments will your company develop?
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- Which new product platforms will you develop?
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- When and how will these product developments happen?
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- Which technologies will be used?
- Will you have to get new technologies or licenses?
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Roadmapping has a strategic role in the product planning. It’s an effective method for drawing an attack plan.
