a study of high-technology entrepreneurial business...

The International Conference on Graduate Students’ Research Work: 1 A Joint Conference between the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Prince of Songkla University and the Malaysia National Writers Association (PENA)

A Study of High-Technology Entrepreneurial Business Start-Up factors and innovation strategies in Thailand Varit Intrama. Faculty of Accountancy and Management, Mahasarakham University

ABSTRACT

Purpose The main aim of this article is to gain the understanding of the business startup

factors and entrepreneurial strategies employed by SMEs in high technologies in Thailand.

Design/methodology/approach This research takes a qualitative approach and descriptive

statistics in exploring the relationship between start-up factors, innovation strategies and firm

performance of high-tech entrepreneurs in Thailand. Case study of 4 entrepreneurial

organizations and in-depth interview with CEOs/founders were conducted to comp

Findings The study has found that 3 out of 4 companies use imitation strategy, only 1

company uses first mover strategy. All of them use alliance strategy. All companies have

growth rate during past 3 years, the first mover company has the highest growth rate. All

entrepreneurs have high readiness of business start-up factor but their businesses grow with

different rate.

Research limitations/implications Number of samples is only 4 samples, which is limited to

provide the generalization of the entrepreneurial theory. Sample companies are all in

Information Technology cluster and may not be the good representatives of high-technology

clusters.

Practical implications This paper has the practicality for both government, educational,

SME audiences. To achieve financial targets, both start-up factors and strategies must be

appropriately selected.

Originality/value The paper has the originality in terms of its model that integrates

Timmon’s model with the entrepreneurial innovation strategy and the firm financial

performance.

Keywords Entrepreneur, Strategy, Innovation, Performance, High-technology, Information

Technology, Thailand

Paper type Case study


INTRODUCTION

Thailand government has been pushing SME development policies by funding major SMEs,

manufacturing firm and agricultural firm to stimulate economic growth. The fact shows that

those SME development policies can not achieve economic objectives. There is less than 5

percentages of new firms can contribute to expected economic objectives. The principle of

financial management theory states the business heuristics of high risk also high return.

Agriculture industry is low-risk business and yields low return. Therefore, if Thailand

government expects high return or high growth on economics, higher risk will be involved.

High technology business possesses high risk and high return, the investigation of high

technology especially information technology (IT) SME development , strategy and

performance will be the foundation of this research, which will be beneficial to the planning

of Thailand government SME policies.

The purposes of this study are to: (i) identify the innovation strategies of high technology

firms. (ii) investigate innovation strategies of high technology firms that can be guideline for

new entries of SMEs in high technology clusters.

Research Objectives

The objectives of this research are to identify strategic type business start up factors and

performance, we conduct case studies on five Thailand’s high-technology SMEs firms and

analyze their growth histories in past 3 years. Case studies can be useful in investigating how

each firm has grown in context to the others and comparing similar strategies in different

business start up factors.

Research Question

The following questions will be researched through this research paper:

RQ01: Do entrepreneur start-up factors affect the high-tech-entrepreneur’s innovation

strategies and firm’s financial performance? How?

RQ02: Does each entrepreneurial strategy affect the financial performance of high-tech

entrepreneurs? How?


Research Design

All of the four cases in this paper are Thailand’s high-technology SME firms that were found

by Thai people and unsupported by any Thailand government fund. All firms were

established by business opportunities and vision of founder.

All firms are mainly software-consulting and development base. Each case was developed by

face-to-face and telephonic in-depth interviews with founders. We focused on firm’s

technological strategies-start up factors relationship that effect to firm’s performance. Sale

and profit are used to represent performance.

This exploratory case study investigated technological strategies: first mover, imitation and

alliance, and business start up factors in Timmons model approach; business opportunities

resources and team. Technological strategies are measured by characteristics of their

strategies. The business start-up factors are measured by business owner attitude on

assumption that has equal degree of importance. Finally, firm’s performances are measured

by the size of total sales, average sale growth rate and return on assets (ROA) in last three

years.

Research Contribution

This research will have two contributions. First, it will provide understanding of how the

startup-factor of high technology entrepreneur affects the strategies and the firm’s

performance. Second, it will provide the selection and combination of the strategy used to

achieve the expectation of firm’s financial objectives.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW

This section will describe relevant theories of this study and the conceptual framework that is

used for this research paper.

Literature Review

We will cover the literature review of Timmons model (Timmons and Spinelli, 2007),

entrepreneurial innovation strategy and performance measurement of SME firms.


Timmons Model of New Venture Creation

Figure 1 Timmons Model for Entrepreneurial Process

Timmons model of the Entrepreneurial process is to balance 3 driving forces of Opportunity,

Resources and Team with the holistic approach in creating the new venture. Central theme is

that the highly dynamic entrepreneurial process is opportunity-driven, resource parsimonious,

led by entrepreneur and entrepreneurial team and finally must be with sustainability. The

core of the process is the “Opportunity”. Ideas of would-be entrepreneurs cannot attract

investors during the due diligence process if those would-be entrepreneurs cannot identify the

exact prospective customers and markets. Opportunity can be explained with market demand

(market share and growth potential, ability to reach the customer), market structure and size

(emerging segments or fragmented segments, proprietary barrier to entry), margin analysis

(gross margin percentage, competitive capital requirement, break even point, economic value

added). Resources include the financial resources, assets, creative people, and business plan.

Quality entrepreneurs prefer to minimize and control rather than to maximize and own. The

“Bootstrapping” is the style of entrepreneurs starting the business. They should “think cash

last” and “conserve your equity” to sustain the growth and maximize shareholder value.

Entrepreneurial team consists of entrepreneurial leader and the quality team. Entrepreneurial

leader can learn and teach their team well and fast, can is flexible and tolerates with

uncertainty. He/she should also build the entrepreneurial culture in the organization. For

the team to have entrepreneurial quality, they must possess relevant experience and track

record, obsessed with opportunity, motivated to excel , has the creativity , adaptability , locus


of control, tolerate with risk, ambiguity and uncertainty. In addition, team member should

have courage, leadership, and good communication skills. Rewarding, sharing success and

failure among team members and stakeholders are the key attributes of entrepreneurial leader.

Entrepreneurial Innovation Strategy

Dorf and Byers (2008) argues that the entrepreneur can build an effective strategy for

innovative business in different ways. Most innovators perceive the advantage of being the

first to market. First mover can enjoy the brand recognition, the trust and relationship with

customers and suppliers, the shorter learning curve, higher skills and experience as time

passes by. However, to be the first in the market cannot guarantee the sustainability of their

businesses; new entrepreneurs must encounter the technology market, and economic

uncertainty, the industry regulation, the pressure from customers, competitors, suppliers, and

complementors. Therefore, firms may seek alternatives to first mover innovation strategy by

using the imitator strategy or alliance/partner strategy to achieve the creation of innovative

products or services to their customers. The imitator strategy help reduce the risk occurred

in investing own R&D effort and expenditure, the risk of introducing completely new

products or services to existing customers. Imitator is the replication or close copying of

existing best practices of first movers. However, the imitator strategy has its own pitfalls.

The imitation can be unsuccessful if the firms are lack of understanding in business and

technology environments. The success stories in developed countries may not be successful

in developing countries. Therefore the direct copying of ideas, products, services without

adaptation , or so-called localization, to local environment can be the deteriorate the firm

performance by not satisfying its customers, suppliers and complementors. In developing

countries like Thailand, technology transfer activities are most common in high-technology

entrepreneurs. They are not the developers of the key technologies but they are the

implementers or practitioners of those globalized technologies. For example, Microsoft and

Sun Microsystems , based in United States, are key technology developers of .NET and J2EE

technologies in IT business. SAP, based in Germany is the key technology developer in ERP

(Enterprise Resource Planning) software package like SAP. Most Thai entrepreneurs are the

implementers of these technologies. This leads to another innovation strategy of

alliance/partner strategy. A partnership or alliance is an association of two or more firms

that agree to cooperate with one another to achieve mutually compatible goals that would be

deifficult for each to accomplish alone (Spekman, 2000). New venture has its technological


and innovative value to attract customers, suppliers, competitors, and complementors. This

creates the “Value Network”. Value network is very important to the new venture because it

helps reduce cost and time incurred in acquiring the specific resources and capabilities. (Hitt,

Ireland and Hoskisson, 2005). Firms seeks alliance/partner strategy to gain the benefits in

accessing deeper and wider to their customers, suppliers or complementors. Most Thai IT

companies has been partnering with large IT vendors e.g. IBM, Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, HP to

gain formal/classroom technical knowledge sharing, to contact the prospective customers

who are willing to be early adopters of new technologies, the benefits of lower investment on

software licensing, co-develop with those large vendors to create new hardware/software

platforms. Alliance/partner strategy will be less effective when roles and responsibilities are

unclear, or benefits are not mutual or are unfair to relevant parties.

All of the innovation strategies for entrepreneurs mentioned above can be summarized as

follows:

Definition Advantages Disadvantages Examples

First mover Being the first to

provide innovative

products/service to

current/new market

- Gain brand recognition,

trust, relationship,

knowledge, skills in

early phase

- Risk are fully bear by

firstmover

- Risk of shorter

product life cycle due

to Technological or

demand change

Apple

Imitator The close copying or

replication of the

innovation of first

mover or the

products/services

offered in current

market

- Gain the best practices

- Reduce time and effort

in R&D

- Customer switching

cost from first mover

- Lower margin

assumed due to less

differentiation

Samsung

Soken

Family

Alliance/

Partner

The association of 2 or

more firms to gain

mutual benefits and

competitive advantages

that is higher than

executing alone

- Resource and

capabilities, risk are

shared among parties in

value network

- The Clarity of Mutual

benefits, roles and

responsibilities

SonyEricsson

Avanade

Performance Measurement of SMEs

Refer to the literature review work of Reijonen and Komppula (2007), they argue based upon

the Murphy work in 1996 that the most commonly used performance measures are

efficiency : ROI (Return on Investment), growth: (increase in sales), and profit (net profit).

We rely on this financial performance measures for the period of 3 years. R&D expenditure


over total investment are used to identify the importance of innovation in each firm (Kaplan

and Norton, 1996).

Theoretical Framework

Refer to the literature review work mentioned above; we come up with the following

conceptual model.

Figure 2 Conceptual Model

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Population

This research is based on the methodology of “case study research” (Yin, 2003). We use the

multiple case studies and explore in details according to the study objectives. We interviewed

4 technology-based firms : SinaptIQ, Tellvoice Technology Company, Boston Network

Company and MB Systems Company, which all have growth in past 3 years. All of the

surveyed companies are as follows:

Case 1: Firm S (SinaptIQ)

SinaptIQ was established in Thailand in early 2003 by 2 founders from Myanmar and

Singapore who are information technology specialists. They have long experience in IT-

consulting company and also improved management skill by got master degree of business

administration from SASIN business school, Chulalongkorn university, Thailand. They can

find and create business opportunities that a combination of experienced, meticulous software

architects and success-driven business professionals to provide innovative services around

emerging mobile technology and enterprise frameworks such as .NET and J2EE.


Mainly SinaptIQ’s customer are the Thai banking sector and its distinctly foundation. They

satisfied SinaptIQ’s product, record of Access Control Server, Merchant Plug-In, and

Payment Gateway system implementation developed in Thailand. SinaptIQ certified by

globally recognized institutions Visa International and Master Card International, globally

recognized expertise in these areas is fully available in Thailand.

Case 2: Firm T (Tellvoice Technology Company Limited.)

Tellvoice Technology Company Limited. was established in Thailand in early 2004 by 2

electronic engineers who are member of PH.D in electronic engineering. At first time they

take opportunities from PH.D dissertation, Thai speech recognition platform, to commercial.

Products of Tellvoice Technology Company Limited was developed on core competency to

commercial products as voice applications and implements the platform to work with

interactive voice response (IVR) system.

Tellvoice Technology Company Limited does in partnership with our clients in fast changing

market segments such as: Telecommunication, IVR systems/solutions, Wire/wireless

networks, handheld devices, Information services, Public sectors, Multimedia

services/solutions etc.

Case 3: Firm B (Boston Network Company Limited)

Boston Network is the leading knowledge provider company who provides corporate training,

seminar, conference, public training, executive forum, productivity tools and assessment

services for organizations, teams and individuals. Boston Network helps companies succeed

by unleashing the power of their workforce to focus and execute on top business priorities.

We bring in latest business know-how, world-class cutting edge management knowledge, and

valuable insights to Thai society.

Case 4: Firm M (MB Systems Company Limited)

M.B. System Automation Company Limited's focus is to provide results that are

implemented quickly and efficiently. Solutions are developed in partnership with the client

by listening to their needs. We know listening to the customer and understanding their

business needs and operation is fundamental to success. We provide the following technology

based services to develop enterprise solutions: database solutions, software design,


application programming, systems integration, network design and implementation, technical

support and training.

Instrumentation, Data Collection

Semi-structured interview guide is used to get qualitative information side of innovation of

the company as the first priority. In addition, the structured questions are used to investigate

the business information of the company (financial ratios, R&D, entrepreneur view of their

own business). The interview consists of both face-to-face and phone interviews.

We use statistical techniques of descriptive statistics to explore the relationship between each

contruct and measures.

Scale and Measurements

Likert scale of 5 is used in the research for the start-up factors survey, while the firm

performances in financial perspectives are surveyed in numerical format.

RESEARCH FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

Research Findings

The results of the interview are described in this section. Firms’ characteristics are

summarized in Table 1:

Table 1: Summary of firms’ characteristics

Firm M Firm S Firm B Firm T

Characteristics of firms

Founding year June 1992 April 2003 August 2004 May 2004

Type of firm Limited

company

Limited

company

Limited

company

Limited

company

Registered capital (start) 1 million baht 1 million baht 1 million baht 2 million baht

CEO background Engineer IT Engineer Engineer

# of employees (start) 2 employees 2 employees 3 employees 6 employees

Major product IT service

consulting,

software &

system

development

Financial

payment

product

VOIP, ISO

27001

(Information

security)

Thai Speech

Recognition

SinaptIQ has many resources for business start up and maintain. The first investment comes

from both of founders is totally 1,000,000 Baht. For the team, also mainly by themselves.


Tellvoice Technology Company Limited has strongly resources for business start up

especially products, own products and intellectual properties, and team who are professional

in speech recognition technology. The first investment is totally 2,000,000 Baht.

Boston Network Company Limited was established in Thailand in August 2004. The first

investment is totally 1,000,000 Baht.

MB Systems Company Limited was established in Thailand in mid-year 1992, it has a start-

ups registered capital 1,000,000 Baht.

Business start-up factor, firm’s strategies and firm’s performance are presented in Table 2:

Table 2: Summary of business start-up factors of Thailand high-technology firms.

Remark

Score 1 -2.33 means weak or poor start-up readiness

Score 2 .34-3.66 means fair or moderate start-up readiness

Score 3 .67-5.00 means strong start-up readiness

Table 3: Firms’ strategies


Firm’s strategies

First mover strategies

(7)

- - - 5 (71.43%)

Imitation strategies

(7)

6 (85.71%) 6 (85.71%) 3 (42.86%) -

Alliance strategies (8) 4 (50.00%) 5 (62.50%) 6 (75.00%) 5 (62.50%)


Business start up factors

Opportunity

Industry 4.25 3.75 4.25 3.50

Market 4.25 4.50 3.75 2.25

Product 4.40 2.40 3.80 2.80

Resources

Finance 3.50 2.25 3.00 3.00

Assets 5.00 1.50 5.00 5.00

Human 5.00 2.50 2.00 3.50

Strategies 2.00 2.00 3.50 4.00

Team

Management 4.20 3.40 4.80 5.00

Practice 3.00 2.91 4.36 4.91


Remark

Score 1.00%-33.33% means weak or poor use of strategy execution

Score 33.34%-66.66% means fair or moderately use of strategy execution

Score 66.67%-100.00% means strongly use of strategy execution

Table 4: Firms’ performances


Firm’s performances

(2007)

Sales 18 million Baht 18 million Baht 12 million Baht 10 million Baht

Net profit 3.6 million Baht 6 million Baht 4 million Baht -

ROA 34.28% - 80% -

Total investment 10.5 million

Baht

5 million Baht 5 million Baht -

R&D investment 200,000 Baht 4.5 million Baht 300,000 Baht 2 million Baht

Registered capital (now) 4 million Baht 5 million Baht 3 million Baht -

Analysis of Firm S

Under opportunity approach, industry and market factors are very attractive (3.75 and 4.50

respectively). But product factors are moderated attractive (2.40). Resources approach,

almost of resources are weakness: finance, assets and strategic (2.25, 1.50 and 2.00

respectively) except human resources (2.50). The last approach, team, both of team factors:

management and practice are fair capability (3.40 and 2.91 respectively). Firm’s strategies,

SinaptIQ strongly uses imitate strategies (85.71%) and moderately uses alliance strategies

(62.50%). Firm’s performance, sale and profit growth rate is 157 % and 71%.

Analysis of Firm T

Under opportunity approach, industry and product factors are moderated attractive (3.50 and

2.80 respectively) while market factors is poor attractive But product (2.25). Resources

approach, financial and human resources are fair (3.00 and 3.50 respectively). Both of assets

and strategic are strongly capability (5.00 and 4.00 respectively). The last approach, team,

both of team factors: management and practice are strongly capability (5.00 and 4.91

respectively).

Firm’s strategies, Tellvoice Technology Company Limited strong uses first mover strategies

(71.40%) and moderately uses alliance strategies (62.50%). Firm’s performance, sale growth

rate is 233 %.


Analysis of Firm B

Under opportunity approach, industry market and product factors are very attractive (4.25,

3.75 and 3.80 respectively). Resources approach, financial and strategies resources are fair

(3.00 and 3.50 respectively). Resources approach, assets is strongly capability (5.00). But

human resources is weakly capability (2.00). The last approach, team, both of team factors:

management and practice are strongly capability (4.80 and 4.36 respectively).

Firm’s strategies, Boston Network Company Limited moderately uses imitate strategies

(42.86%) and strongly uses alliance strategies (75.00%). Firm’s performance, sale and profit

growth rate are 100 % and 82% respectively.

Analysis of Firm M

For opportunity approach, Firm M developed and introduced very attractive product (4.4) to

IT industry, very attractive industry (4.25) and also market (4.25).

In addition, Firm M has many strong resources; assets and human resources (5 and 5

respectively) but it weak in strategic resources (2). The last approach, team, management is

strongly capability (4.2). MB Systems strongly uses imitate strategies (85.7%) and

moderately uses alliance strategies (50%). The total sales of Firm M have grown from 15

million baht in 2005 to 18 million baht in 2007 (sales growth rate 20%) and its profit has

grown from 3 million baht in 2005 to 3.6 million baht in 2007 (growth rate 20%)

Figure 3. Summary score of Timmon’s model .

TellVoice


Research Analysis

Figure 4 Relationship of business start-up factors and firm performance

Figure 4 shows that most of firms have high degree of business start-up readiness. But firm’s

performance does not depend on score. On the other hand, firm B has low degree of business

start-up but with higher performance than other firms that have high degree of business start-

up readiness.

Figure 5 Relationship of firm’s strategies and firm performance

Figure 5 shows that most of firms have high score of strategy execution. But firms’

performance does not depend on score, like business start-up factor. Firm S has low score of

strategies but has higher performance than firm M that has high score of strategy execution.


Firm performance (Sale growth rate)

240%

160%

80%

0%

1 2.3 5 3.66

MB

Boston

SinaptIQ

Tellvoice

Firm performance (Sale growth rate)

240%

160%

80%

0%

100% 66.66% 33.33% 0%

Firm’s strategies

Tellvoice

Boston

SinaptIQ

MB


Figure 6 Relationship of business start up factors and firm’s strategies

Figure 6 shows that most of firms have relationship between business start-up factor and

strategy execution.

Figure 7 Relationship of business start up factors, firm strategy and firm performance.

Firm strategies

Business start up Factors

1

2.3

5

3.66

66.66% 33.33% 0% 100%

Tellvoice MB

SinaptIQ

Boston

Firm performance (Sale growth rate) Firm strategies


240%

160%

80%

5

3.66

2.33

33.33% 66.66%% 100%

SinaptIQ Boston

MB

Tellvoice


Figure 7 describes relationship in 3 dimensions. This shows trend that we can improve

performance by the increase of business start up factor/readiness or strategy execution

characteristics. The coordinates: average score of business start up, average score of strategy

execution characteristics and performance of firm, are firm M (3.83, 67.86, 20), firm S (2.87,

74.11, 157), firm B (3.91, 58.93, 100) and firm T (3.83, 66.96, 233)

CONCLUSION

The main purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for high-technology SMEs firms

strategies and to analyze growth histories in past three years. We apply Timmon’s model in

business start-up factors to find relationship with strategies and to analyze firm performance

that is reflected by the strategy execution.

Business start-up factors

Under opportunity dimension, we found all of firms agree that high-technology industry is

very attractive. It shows they believe in industry expansion and they can get profit from. We

can use risk and reward profile for various investment to explain it.

In market opportunity, all of firms that use imitation strategies think it is very attractive

except firm T who use the first mover strategies. Maybe firm T thinks that to successfully

launch the product, time to entry varies from one product to another. From stage of

innovation curve, there are lots of risks to fail before early adopters accept product. On the

other hand, products of the firms which use imitation strategies proves that market

opportunity depend on the stages and time of product life cycle (PLC).

For product opportunity, 2 from 3 firms who use imitation strategies; firm M and firm B,

think their products has good features and capabilities. This is because their products are

necessary for customer and have high switching cost. Especially, firm S, which mainly

provides the products and services to the private banking customers, these types of customer

uses highly structured system and difficult to change.


Under resources dimension, firm M and firm T have average score of strong resources while

firm B and firm S have fair and weak resources, respectively. For financial resources, no firm

has strong financial readiness.

Under team dimension, all of management team has higher score than practical team. Maybe

it has some bias from interviewees who are owners and top management. The result shows

that firm T who uses the first mover strategies has the highest score. It can explain under core

competencies theory, firm will be successful based upon specific and competent resources.

We can find a pattern of relationship between business start-up factor firm’s strategies and

firm’s performance that show in Table 5

Firm strategies

Almost firms use imitation strategies except firm T uses the first mover strategies. And all of

firms use alliance strategy but with degrees of alliance strategy in each firm are different.

Firm performance and growth

Every firm has sale growth rate in past 3 years. Firm T has the highest and firm M is the

lowest.

Table 5: Pattern of relationship between business start up factor firm’s strategies and firm’s

performance

Business start up factors Firm’s strategies Firm’s performance

Low Mid High FM IM AL Low Mid High

Total 3.83 85.71% 50% 20%

Opportunity 4.31

Resources 3.80

Fir

m M

Team 3.38

Total 2.87 85.71% 62.50% 157%

Opportunity 3.46

Resources 2.10 Fir

m S

Team 3.06

Total 3.83 42.86% 75.00% 100%

Opportunity 3.92

Resources 3.30

Fir

m B

Team 4.50

Total 3.83 71.43% 62.50% 233%

Opportunity 2.85

Resources 3.70

Fir

m T

Team 4.94

This study shows the result that all of firms have high score of business start up or high score

of strategy execution and it shows correlation that firm’s performance depends on high score


of business start-up or strategy execution. We can use degree of business start up and

strategies to forecast firm’s performance. If the result also has closed relationship, we can

construct high degree of business factors to provide strategies for effective performance of

firm.

Figure 8 Summary business start-up factors strategies and performance of firm pattern

Recommendation and Extension to this Research

Extensions to this research are modeled in Figure 9. We can incorporate more constructs and

factors including industry factors, capability factors and more holistic performance

measurements of the SME firms according to Kaplan’s balanced scorecard framework

(1996).

Industry factors include the effects from the Porter’s five forces model(Porter,1998);

customers, suppliers, competitors, complementors (additional sixth forces to Porter’s five

forces model represents the companies in which their products or services complement the

firm to provide the total systems/solutions). Entrepreneur capability factors include

creativity, production capacity, logistic capability, marketing and service capability. Firm’s

performance can be more than financial performance includes other 3 perspectives of

balanced scorecards: customer , internal process, learning & growth; which may turn into the

performance measures such as customer satisfaction index, customer lifetime value,

operational efficiency, and learning & innovation capability index.

TellVoice


Firm’s strategies L M H

L M H

L M H

L M H

L M H L M H

First mover

Imitation

Alliance

Opportunity Resource Team


For the mediating variables, we can incorporate Porter’s generic strategies (Porter, 1998)

along with the innovation strategies. Generic strategies include cost leadership,

differentiation, and focus.

Hudson, Smart and Bourne (2001) provides the literature review of SME performance

measurement systems. They argue the critical dimensions of performance are quality, time,

flexibility, finance, customer satisfaction, and human resources. Finance measurements

include cash flow, sales, cost reduction, inventory performance. Customer measurements are

market share, competitiveness, and deliverability. Time measurements covers lead time,

process time, cycle time, delivery speed, resource utilization. Quality covers product

performance, delivery reliability. Flexibility are manufacturing flexibility, volume flexibility,

computerized controlled systems. Human resources incorporate productivity, quality of work-

life, employee involvement and relationships.

Figure 9 Extended Model of Innovation Strategies for High-technology Entrepreneurs

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