The commercialization of technological innovation by growth oriented Finnish start-ups

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis was to study how to commercialize a technological innovation by a growth-oriented start-up company. The aim was to have a deeper understanding of deployment strategies and what challenges and risks are related to the commercialization process and how they can be overcome. The thesis was commissioned by a Company X, which is a start-up company itself and has recently launched its innovation in the domestic market and plans to scale-up to the international markets.

The theoretical part introduced first the concept of start-up and start-up ecosystem in Finland. After that the literature review presented the strategic management of technological innovation. This part included the basic concepts of innovation, innovation process and intellectual property rights and continued further exploring successful innovation team, value creation process, business model planning and strategies for commercialization. The thesis used a qualitative research method conducting a case study, where the data was collected through semi-structured interviews from eight respondents and analyzed following content data analysis process.

The findings proof that there is no single solution, how to commercialize technological innovation successfully but there are several strategies, which can be also combined. It is a strategic choice, which will impact the company's business model and how it will define and develop its value proposition, customer relationships, key activities, key resources, key partners and channels. The research results suggest that the main challenge of commercializing a technological innovation is to proof a scalable solution and implement the transfer from pilot scale to industrial scale, which is required to bring the company to the next level.