Maturity model proposal to evaluate the technology development process: An application to the activities and approaches of R&D-500 companies

Technology development initiatives in companies often fail. The main reason for this is that technology development initiatives in companies generally take place according to the intuitive decisions of senior managers and personnel. With intuitive decisions, individuals and teams that are successful at the individual level can achieve successful results in technology development initiatives. However, companies need more than luck, intuitive decisions and individual success to manage complex processes such as technology development and make the right judgments. What companies need is the existence of a structured process that is accepted and implemented at the firm level. The existence of this situation has encouraged the investigation of the activities and the level of application applied from the acquisition of ideas to the production stage. This study is designed to develop a maturity model to evaluate the implementation of the structured technology development process at the organizational level and its effect on the performance of the process in companies that spend the most on r&d. Within the framework of this purpose, a model has been developed to determine which activities and stages the structured technology development process consists of and what effect it has on the performance of the process. In the development of the model, the survey method was used and the data obtained from the companies that made the most r&d expenditures were used. As a result of the research, the technical research phase and the commercial research phase have a decisive influence on the development phase. While the development phase has a decisive effect on the performance of the process, technical research and commercial research have no effect on the performance of the process. In addition, it has been determined that the industry level and r&d expenditures of the companies differ according to the technical research stage, commercial research stage and development stage. However, there is evidence that the technology development process does not differ according to the size of the r&d personnel.