Towards developing a decision making tool for technology and knowledge priorities

Abstract

The main focus of this paper is to propose a method for prioritizing knowledge and technology factor of firms towards sustainable competitive advantage. The data has been gathered and analyzed from two high tech start-ups in which technology and knowledge play major role in company’s success. The analytical hierarchy model (AHP) is used to determine competitive priorities of the firms. Then knowledge and technology part of sense and respond questionnaire is used to calculate the variability coefficient i.e. the uncertainty caused by technology and knowledge factor. The proposed model is tested in terms of two start-ups. Based on the initial calculation of uncertainties, some improvement plan is proposed and the method is applied again to see if the uncertainty of knowledge and technology decreases. In both cases, the proposed model helped to have a clear and precise improvement plan and led in reduction of uncertainty.