Roadmapping Process Implementation: Challenges for a Large-Scale Company

Product-technology roadmapping is one of the major planning tools for integrating the company's strategic objectives and current plans. The roadmapping process itself helps to create collaborative knowledge and transforming knowledge from tacit to explicit, which creates a common understanding among different departments. However, there are a number of challenges in establishing the process as a part of the management system in an organization. One of the difficulties stated was the resistance of organizational units to the changes in the business process, organizational structure, and work culture. In this article, the roadmapping implementation phases at Arcelik A.S., a durable consumer goods company, utilizing roadmapping as a part of the strategic planning process will be discussed. One of the unique contributions of the Arcelik A.S. case study is that the roadmapping methodology integration to other processes, such as strategic planning, portfolio management, and human resources planning, was done seamlessly. The needs and roadmapping implementation challenges in a company, which is expanding itself from local to global, solutions generated for a more suitable application, and lessons learned for roadmapping continuity will be discussed in detail. These learnings could help organizations in adapting similar approaches. The case study could also be a source of academic research on the roadmapping methodology.