Technological Drivers for Future Markets
The latest issue of the journal Foresight and STI Governance (Vol. 9, No. 4) shows how the latest developments can change particular industries, including automotive industry, medicine, and music industry.
The primary long-term socio-economic challenges drive demand for a range of technologies. Experts of the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-term Forecasting Alexander Apokin, Dmitry Belousov, Vladimir Salnikov, Igor Frolov explore four groups of key factors that influence demand for new technology in the article ‘Long-term Socioeconomic Challenges for Russia and Demand for New Technology’. First, there are factors that strengthen Russia’s role as a provider of key natural resources for the global economy. Second, of equal importance are those factors that support import substitution of various products of the global market. Third, developing centres of technological competences play a significant role, especially in export-oriented, manufacturing, and services sectors. Finally, technological advancement would occur by integrating Russia into global technological value chains with external system integrators in pharmaceuticals, machine-building, petroleum products, and some ICT sub-sectors.
Tatiana Mitrova, Vyacheslav Kulagin, Dmitriy Grushevenko, Ekaterina Grushevenko (Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences) analyse the difficulties in forecasting demand for liquid fuels under conditions of uncertainty related to future technological developments in car transport in their article ‘Technological Innovation as a Factor of Demand for Energy Sources in Automotive Industry’.
The issue of forecasting demand for liquid fuels has become particularly significant in recent years with technological development and much tougher inter-fuel competition in the transport sector. In future, these developments could radically transform the oil, gas, and electricity markets. The authors suggest the system for forecasting demand for liquid fuels, including petroleum products that can be used as an instrument to assess the future impact of technological innovation on the development of the oil industry when carrying out foresight studies.
Usage of telemedicine applications – the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in order to provide clinical health care at a distance – will help optimize the costs of healthcare in the long-term. The main advantages of telemedicine include reducing the number of doctor’s errors, saving both patients and physicians time, and improving the efficiency of healthcare organizations. It also ensures timely and quality services for large segments of the population living in remote territories with difficult socio-economic conditions, particularly rural areas. The paper ‘Prospects for Telemedicine Adoption: Prognostic Modeling as Exemplified by Rural Areas of USA’ by Jisun Kim, Hamad Alanazi, Tugrul Daim (Portland State University) forecasts the adoption rate of telemedicine by using the Bass Model. The model is considered quite versatile as it can be used across a wide range of products and services.
The paper ‘The Epistemological Foundations of Music Piracy in the Digital Marketplace’ examines the fundamental epistemological gap between the consumers and producers of digitally based products. In this article Clayton Davies, Glenn Parry, Janet Carruthers and Marcus Kepple-Palmer (University of the West of England) evaluate the nature of ‘piracy’ from multiple perspectives: creators, intermediaries, distributors, and end consumers using the music industry and the significance of digital products in this arena as a case study of evolving relationships between buyers and sellers. Using the analytical framework developed, the case study of music piracy illustrates how identifying epistemological dissonance helps sellers develop strategies that could minimize the impact of piracy on their revenue streams.
New realities and trends emerge, changing the established ‘rules of the game’ and calling for immediate actions from politicians, experts, and various economic actors. In the article ‘Identifying Directions for the Russia’s Science and Technology Cooperation’ Maxim Kotsemir, Tatiana Kuznetsova, Elena Nasybulina and Anna Pikalova (HSE) propose an analytical approach to build and examine an empirical database. Drawing on bibliometric analysis and expert survey tools, such an approach helps us identify the most promising areas for Russia’s international S&T cooperation.
Scenario development is a widely used tool to reduce uncertainty while making decisions in high velocity environments. Nevertheless, many managers have a blinkered obsession with short-term performance objectives out of a fear of an unpredictable future, as well as a sheer inability to conceive of alternative futures generated in scenario planning exercises. Authors of the paper ‘Managerial Engagement with Scenario Planning: A Conceptual Consumption Approach’ Abiodun Adegbile (European University Viadrina) and David Sarpong (HSE and University of the West of England) analyse the factors determining the willingness of decision makers to actively engage in processes of scenario planning.