Overcoming deadlocks for technology commercialization by finding appropriate applications

Even though candidate applications of emerging technologies cover a broad field of markets, the development of new businesses based on new technologies do not progress as expected at all. Commercialization faces a series of deadlock during the process, for example, the anticipated application markets do not emerge as expected at all. The inhibitory factors for the progress are not simply due to technological development issues. Other issues, such as further progress of competitive technologies, infant progress of necessary complementary technologies and shortage of social requirements may arise which are difficult to be solved by a firm in a short term. What are the deadlock factors preventing new business development? In this study, setting application paths for emerging technologies for commercialization to overcome deadlocks is examined. In order to establish a structure and analyze the deadlock, a “shotgun approach” is proposed as a methodology by considering multiple possibilities for the applications and finding the inhibitory factors. The method is applied to the cases of mobile fuel cell and fluid MEMS. Based on these analyses, since the major inhibitory factors are difficult to be solved in the short term, the application markets should be modified. Therefore establishing and modeling “paths to create a final market” is crucial not only for commercialization but also for accumulating knowledge, building technology competence, and anticipating social requirements with increasing reliability.