Technological outsourcing in corporate R&D activities

This paper examines and presents the background of increasing technological outsourcing in corporate R&D activities in the latter half of 90s as well as future challenges regarding the outsourcing. This paper is based on statistical analysis and a questionnaire survey of corporations. industry by industry. The increase in outsourcing occurred because of the needs to speed up R&D processes and to obtain essential technologies which are not internally available have increased. The needs reflect the shift of corporate strategies from possessing superior manufacturing facilities and know-how to trying to be profitable through such means as preemptive commercialization of new products and protection of technologies by patents. In various industries it is becoming imperative to recognize the importance of shifting away from traditional exploitation of internal resources and to improve the corporate-wide ability to evaluate, acquire and utilize external resources. In steel industry the needs to speed up R&D process and to obtain external technologies are not significant. Rather, the role as technology provider for other industires is important. Efforts to provide accumulated technologies to others including overseas companies would be beneficial.