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Roadmapping is a method able to integrate different planning levels and to allocate options within these levels, using the metaphor of guidance through the complexity of a geographic landscape. Roadmaps enable companies to explore and choose the best possible route from available options. Today, roadmapping (and strategy in general) is confronted with new challenges. Industry trends such as an increasing digitization, smart systems and the internet of things are forcing companies to consider fields in their roadmapping processes that are extending beyond traditional core competencies. The aim of the presented research is to identify current roadmapping practices applied in industrial companies in Germany. To reach this aim, characterizing parameters for roadmap design, as well as future challenges, recommendations and pitfalls were investigated with the help of practitioners from industrial companies in an internet survey.

The INTRAW project – European Union’s International Observatory for Raw Material - is working towards a sustainable future for the European Union in terms of access to raw materials. One of the major exercises is the evaluation of potential future scenarios for 2050 to help framing economic, research, and environmental policy development. The INTRAW consortium developed three possible future scenarios that encompass defined regimes of political, economic, and technological parameters to provide simulations of impacts resulting from expected conditions for 2050.

This contribution addresses the impact of disruptive technologies on business model innovation. While such technologies have the potential to significantly alter the way in which businesses operate, business model inertia hinders companies from adopting the new technological possibilities. Little research has focused on the difficulties incumbents face when innovating their business models. By reviewing current literature on business model innovation, this paper summarizes challenges companies face when dealing with potential disruptive technologies and creating viable business models.

Many companies and regions in Europe consider innovation to be their key competitive advantage. To enable these actors to successfully incorporate innovation into their strategic planning, this article seeks to scope dynamics of industrial innovation by analyzing historical developments and forecasting future trends. The insight into historical developments provides the basis for learnings and a deeper understanding of the dynamics of industrial innovation. The forecast of industrial innovation in 2030 creates a framework to discuss future orientation and positioning. Historical developments are regrouped according to five key action fields of R&D and innovation management in accordance to the action fields of industrial companies. The foresight process was carried out based on a reduced and adapted version of the scenario technique, starting bottom-up with the descriptors of innovation systems and resulting in five theses on how innovation will look like in 2030. Both perspectives are combined to reach conclusions on anticipated transformative aspects in industrial innovation systems and discuss potential consistencies, repetitions, and interruptions between historical and future dynamics.

This paper shows a process of developing a decision support tool to automatically generate building retrofit alternatives and rank them using energy performance analysis, user requirements, relevant benchmarks and regulations. Refinement of the retrofit scenarios follows a set of steps from creation of a Building Information Model of a base-case representing the status of the building at the time of the analysis, then creation of combinations for the possible retrofit scenarios. TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) based multi criteria approach is adopted as it relies on identified best alternatives using selected criteria. Ranking of alternatives follows their relative closeness to the identified ideal alternative. Best options are graphically presented.

Scarcity of resources, rising material and energy prices and global warming have lead to an increasing demand for resource efficient solutions or 'eco-innovations'. Technological trends can serve as an enabler here: New technologies can be the basis for resource efficient products, processes and services. With the concept "Resource Efficiency Technology Radar", technological options with resource efficiency potential can be identified and assessed. It facilitates a systematic technology intelligence process and includes an assessment of the future technological lifecycle based on the method Material Intensity per Service Unit (MIPS). The results can be integrated into technology and innovation management and planning.