Strategic Management of Technological Innovation - Term Paper Example

The main question in strategic management of technological innovation in recent years has been how companies can attain and maintain competitive advantage. In the current economy which is knowledge-based, the endurance of competitive advantage for larger number of companies rests on their ability to constantly create, protect, and deploy their innovations. Virtually all industries across the globe have been faced with heightened need to strategically manage technological innovations in order to endure competitive advantage.

Telecommunications industry is one of those industries that have enormously embraced strategic management of technological innovations (White and Garry 12). This paper will focus on the telecommunications industry. Telecommunication industry primarily focuses on products and services that transmit information. This industry provides the world with a global system that touches nearly everyone as it allows people to share their thoughts, interact with one another, and conduct business with each other regardless of their location in the world.

The sustainability movement has become more and more important for businesses across the world as they face ever-increasing competition and the need to meet and even exceed social, environmental, and economic requirements (White and Garry 19). The sustainability movement in telecommunications industry has gained much prominence in the recent years as researchers and innovators take a whole-systems approach to develop human technologies, lifestyles, and systems that can provide environmentally benign and high quality ways of life to all human beings presently and many generations in the future.

The telecommunications industry is characterized by high innovation rates due to fast- changing technological landscape. As a result, the industry is associated with a wide range of sustainability challenges and risks. The industry has been revolutionizing at a rapid rate, especially in the recent decades. This is evidenced by widespread introduction of internet technology, introduction of mobile phones, and recent transition into the using of smart meters and smart phones which has contributed to the rise in the mobile data services (White and Garry 23).

The sustainability risks and challenges in the telecommunications industry have been brought about by the following factors: the new technologies that are speedily changing customers’ expectations and requirements; the need for constantly modernizing infrastructure to keep pace with emerging expectations; increased outsourcing of services; increasing demand in mature markets; and fast technological and economic advancement in emerging markets (Schilling 28). Telecommunications industry is one of the biggest, if not the biggest industry in the world.

It brings together numerous players who provide products and services that in one way or another facilitates transmission of information around the world. The industry is comprised of communications satellite operators, ICT service providers, mobile phone companies, telegraph companies, wireless carriers, internet service providers, telecommunications equipment vendors, and VolP companies among others. The largest company members of the