Landscape / roadmapping scouting 

If you are on the verge of starting the development or commercialisation of a new product or technology, you might be interested on what else is out there – is your product the most promising? Who are the prominent key players in this field?Are there other approaches to solving the same problem? With IGOR^AI we can not only find technologies for a given technical challenge, but we can also provide a technology or competitor landscape overview. 

How does landscape/roadmapping scouting work? 

The aim of a technology / competitor landscape project is to provide you an overview of the technologies, products, devices, or competitors that are the most prominent in the challenge you are facing and want to solve. This project consists of 2 (sometimes 3) meetings. During the intake meeting, we discuss together your case and what the focus will be for the scouting project. After this intake meeting, the technology scout will spend a few hours in IGOR^AI to have an overview of how broad/narrow the options are and what is relevant and possible to find. If some steering of the project is needed, a meeting (quick phone call) can be introduced at this point. Questions that might arise at this stage could be: are you interested in competitors from Asian countries? Are you interested in competitors that have filed a patent but have not yet commercialised any product? The rationale behind this approach is that from an early stage, we can integrate your feedback as an expert on the most relevant results. Once the direction is fully grasped, the technology scout will do a deep dive into the results. This will include a list of competitors/technologies (usually on the range between 10 to 30), along with highlights on scientific literature or commercial information, specifications, a TRL radar, and a table that summarises some of the most relevant requirements. The delivery of results at this phase is customisable to your preferences and can be discussed at the intake meeting or over the (optional) halfway quick call.

Example
In this example case, we scouted for surgical robots used for microsurgical procedures. The first hours of scouting covered a quick overview of the different options available – e.g. from a commercial or academic background. From thereafter, the project covered in total 24 robotic platforms (at least on a prototype level), with information on the requirements, TRL and highlights from both science and commercial party (if available). 
A technology/competitor landscape project could be interesting for R&D and business departments of technology-based companies, start-ups, as well as for corporate investment teams and Venture Capitalists investing in hard-tech companies.