In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, organisations face the challenge of making strategic decisions that not only respond to current trends but also anticipate future developments. A Technology Radar is a powerful foresight tool that helps visualise and assess emerging technologies that could impact operations, products and long-term strategy.
What is a technology radar and why use one?
A Technology Radar is a visual framework that categorizes technologies based on criteria like maturity, relevance, and potential impact. It typically includes recommended action zones such as adopt, trial, assess and hold, to help organizations prioritize technology investments.
By utilizing a Technology Radar, companies can align their strategic goals with technological advancements, embedding foresight into strategy and ensuring they stay competitive and innovative over time
4 Benefits of using a technology radar for strategic decisions
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Encourages cross-team collaboration
A Technology Radar fosters collaboration across departments, enabling a shared understanding of which technologies matter most and why. This shared perspective enhances buy-in and alignment across the organisation.
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Supports informed, future-proof decisions
By clearly visualizing technologies and their potential implications, decision-makers can make more future-proofed decisions about where to allocate resources.
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Drives innovation through early signals
A Technology Radar surfaces promising developments early. This opens up opportunities for product innovation, process improvement, and new service design, often before competitors take action.
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Helps future-proof strategy and reduce risk
By identifying possible disruptions and opportunities, Technology Radars help organisations prepare for uncertainty. They enable teams to work with scenarios, rather than react to change, improving resilience.
How to build an effective technology radar
An impactful Technology Radar depends on more than just a list of technologies. It requires a clear structure, shared criteria, and cross-functional input.
Radar framework and tech companies
Segment technologies into categories that reflect your organization’s landscape. This helps structure thinking and draw connections between macro trends, emerging fields, and specific technologies (e.g. developed by peers, start-ups or academia).
Create a hierarchy that covers:
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High-level technology trends
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Emerging tech fields to monitor
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Specific tech applications or tools
Maturity levels and time horizons
Define maturity levels for each technology. You can use basic categories ranging from "Emerging" to "Legacy”, or use commonly used frameworks of Technology readiness levels (TRLs). This classification assists in assessing the readiness and relevance of each technology for your organization. It can also help to identify which teams should look into the technology (e.g. R&D or operational functions).Besides the current maturity, also consider the time frame for each technology's adoption. Some technologies may be expected to develop very fast in the next few years, while others may require a longer phase of R&D or slower adoption curve.
Impact assessment and scoring
Assess each technology’s potential impact on your organization:
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What benefits could it bring?
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What risks or barriers exist?
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How aligned is it with your strategy?
Use a structured evaluation process with both internal and external experts, balancing technical and commercial views. If assigning a score, make sure you define what “impact” means clearly to avoid misinterpretation.
To go one step further, embed opportunity identification frameworks to connect your radar with business value.
How to select the right technologies for your radar
Of course this is very organization and use case specific. When selecting which technologies to feature on your Technology Radar, you can consider the following criteria:
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Strategic alignment: Does the technology support your long-term goals?
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Market signals: Is the technology gaining traction in your industry?
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Customer needs: Can it help solve emerging user problems or unlock new demand?
The selection process should be both data-informed and collaborative, involving strategy teams, domain experts, and innovation leads.
Conclusion: Turning tech uncertainty into strategic advantage
In an era of constant change, using a Technology Radar is no longer optional, it’s essential. By mapping and assessing emerging technologies, organisations can make smarter decisions, drive innovation, and future-proof their strategy.
To succeed, it's critical to go beyond the radar itself. A strong framework, operating model, and governance structure increase adoption, improve the quality of inputs, and generate more actionable insights.
A well-executed Technology Radar turns uncertainty into clarity and technology change into a source of sustainable competitive advantage.
Ready to future-proof your strategy?
Let’s talk about how a foresight-driven Technology Radar can support smarter decisions, innovation, and long-term growth. Schedule a meeting with us
