Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine March 2017 - 56

The Role of Chief Technology Office (CTO)
An effective IP management approach will be able to identify
legacy IP and estimate its exploitable value implementing protection perimeters that will be a competitive advantage for the business.
Technological surveys are exploited to identify the competitors' technological readiness, and time-to-market estimates are
mandatory to identify the protection perimeters.
Protection perimeters must also be aligned with the company's
geographic market and focused within investment plans and product business plans.
Once IP protection is established, it can be included in the relevant commercial contracts Terms and Conditions representing a
tangible value to be added to company products.4
IPRs (such as licensing, litigations, and exploitation of the PP)
represent one of the major contributions of IP management to the
company business.
Other contributions provided by IP management are:
C

Dissemination control of scientific and innovative ideas.
This can be performed by examining the "disclosability" of
technical information either in respect of potential restrictions in cofunded R&D programs or to prevent infringements to/from existing third party IPRs. This specific control
applies to all company papers produced for technical magazines, journals, conference, and public presentations.
Support to make or buy decisions and to other investment
initiatives. Special IP intelligence tools analyze the stateof-art of the world-wide technological offer before making
proper decisions.

C
C

Analysing the alignment of Company B with the strategic
plan of Company A.
Identifying the businesses/products which fit well or complete the perimeter/portfolio of Company A..
Quantifying the unavoidable overlap of products between
Company A and B as a result of the merger.
Analysing the patents and trademarks of Company B.
Evaluating the "position" on the market of the merged company (based on new revenues value or new market share).
Indicating the risks in the case of Company B merging with
one of Company A's competitors.
Issuing recommendations to top management.

CONCLUSIONS
A countless number of descriptions of the CTO role and responsibilities are available in the literature. This article briefly reports on
the author's experience of the impact a CTO has on the business
of a modern defense company. Attention has been focused on the
need of "distributed" CTO functions, i.e. spread over various organization levels, as to a more conventional view of CTO as a pure
central function. This need is caused by the numerous activities
and responsibilities assigned to the CTO.

REFERENCES
[1]

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS
Mergers and acquisitions are an important part of the growth strategy of many companies. Due diligence mainly includes products
appraisal, evaluating patents, reviewing technical publications, and
studying trade data to determine the value of the target company
and to rank it against competitors. Indicate with "A" the CTO company and with "B" the company proposed for merging/acquisition;
the CTO is mainly responsible for:
C

[2]

[3]

Defining the business perimeter of the Company B.

E.g. in the analysis and identification of the background and
foreground.

[4]
[5]

IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE

Tietze, F., Herstatt, C., and Lorenzen, P. The role of the chief technology officer-Responsibilities, skills & qualifications and organizational integration. In Proceedings of the 14th International Product
Development Management Conference, 2007. Available: http://ssrn.
com/abstract=1846858.
Berray, T., and Sampath, R. The role of the CTO, four models for
success. Whitepaper, 2002. Available: https://www.cs.princeton.edu/
courses/archive/spring13/cos448/web/docs/berray_CTO_role.pdf.
Farina, A., Fulcoli, R., Patini, M., Timmoneri, L., Becchetti, C., Fernandes, S., et al. Management of R&D investment plan and product
catalogue in a modern defence systems company. IEEE Aerospace
and Electronic Systems Magazine, (January 2016).
http://www.netmba.com/strategy/matrix/bcg/.
http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporatefinance/our-insights/enduring-ideas-the-ge-and-mckinsey-nine-box-matrix.

MARCH 2017

http://ssrn.com/abstract=1846858 http://ssrn.com/abstract=1846858 https://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spring13/cos448/web/docs/berray_CTO_role.pdf https://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spring13/cos448/web/docs/berray_CTO_role.pdf http://www.netmba.com/strategy/matrix/bcg/ http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/enduring-ideas-the-ge-and-mckinsey-nine-box-matrix http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/enduring-ideas-the-ge-and-mckinsey-nine-box-matrix

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