A Model for Formulation of Product Technology Strategy at a Corporation Based on its Supplier's Technological Capabilities

With the increasing complexity of products and the necessity for development, today’s products, processes and also the relevant technologies, are planned, designed and finally manufactured with the participation of suppliers in the wide range of the corporation’s supply chain. The lack of attention of corporations to the technological capabilities of the supply chain has made them to experience different problems for implementing the product development strategies as well as process. This paper tries to design an integrated model for formulation of strategy of technology for product in the supply chain according to the technological capabilities of its suppliers. The research is conducted with the qualitative approach in two stages. First of all, after literature review and studying the documentation of automotive companies, the preliminary data is gathered through in depth interviews with the panel of experts of Iranian automotive industry and then the collected data is analyzed by using the Theme methodology. So, based on the identified themes and exploring the relations between them, a conceptual model is designed. At the second phase, the validity and reliability of the designed model, are studied and confirmed using the methodology of focus group with a number of other panel of experts of the industry. The designed model makes it possible for corporations to codify the strategy of technology with the participation of supply chain, seamlessly.