Applying Real Options Theory to Tech Management
— real assets, real estate, manufacturing facilities, strategic decisions, technology management, technology development decisions, pilot study decisions, intellectual property valuations, manufacturing options
Speaker: Oliver Yu, Ph.D., President, the STARS Group
Meeting Date: Thursday, December 1, 2011
Time: 6.00 pm Networking; 6:30 pm Management Forum/Guided Networking; 7:00 pm sandwich dinner; 7:30 pm Presentation
Location: RAMADA Silicon Valley, Sunnyvale
Summary:
Management Forum / Guided Networking: Bring Your Management Challenge; Arrive by 6:30 PM to join this exciting Management Forum. Following informal networking is a guided discussion typically related to the topic of the evening’s after dinner talk, or of general Technology Management interest.
Light Dinner: This month we’re continuing with our light dinner format — typically sandwiches, salad, drinks, and cookie or similar light dinner.
Presentation: Applying Real Options Theory to Tech Management
In his presentation, Dr. Yu will discuss a case study of applying Real Options Theory in a management context and the major barriers to acceptance along with the successful strategies to remove them.
By applying the principles of financial options theory to real assets, such as real estate properties and manufacturing facilities, real options theory has gained growing popularity in recent years for assessing the value of management flexibility and lending insights to strategic decisions of an organization. This talk extends the applications of real options theory to technology management.
He will describe the relevance of real options theory in technology development decisions and provide specific illustrative examples for the applications of the theory to technology pilot study decisions, intellectual property valuations, and technology product manufacturing options. He will also critically review the advantages as well as potential pitfalls of these applications.
Bio:
Dr. Oliver Yu, President of the STARS Group, a premier technology and resource strategy consulting firm spun off from SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute) in year 2000, is an internationally recognized expert on technology and resource strategy planning and analysis. He is also a Consulting Associate Professor of Management Science & Engineering at Stanford University and an Adjunct Full Professor on Technology Portfolio Planning for the MBA-MSE (Master of System Engineering) Dual Degree Program and an Executive in Residence at the College of Business of San Jose State University in California.
Prior to founding the STARS Group, Dr. Yu was Director of Energy and Technology Strategies at SRI from 1989 to 2000, responsible for over 100 major projects on technology and resource strategies throughout the world. Before joining SRI in 1989, Dr. Yu was for 15 years the Manager of Planning Analysis at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), responsible for energy industry analysis and EPRI-wide research planning.
Dr. Yu holds a BSEE from National Taiwan University, an MSEE from Georgia Institute of Technology, and an MS in Statistics and a PhD in Operations Research from Stanford University. He has been listed in Who’s Who in America since 2003, and is a member of Sigma Xi, the research honor society. He was a Fulbright Fellow, and an officer as well as the 1984 General Chair of the national meeting and the 1995 General Chair of the first international meeting of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS).
Dr. Yu is an Honorary Professor at the National Dong-Hwa University in Taiwan and the Yunnan Normal University in China. He is also a board member of US-China Green Energy Council and a former board member of Palo Alto Graduate School of Psychology (now Palo Alto University). He has published over 70 technical papers and authored and co-authored 5 books on technology and resource strategy planning, including Technology Portfolio Planning and Management published by Springer in 2006, and Technology Management and Forecasting published by Tsinghua University Press in China.
Dr. Yu has been an invited lecturer at many academic and research institutions around the world, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Wen’s Endowed Lecture of the National Dong-Hwa University. He has also been the keynote speaker at numerous international conferences, including the International Conferences for Management of Technology and the Asia-Pacific Technology Foresight Conferences. He was the co-organizer of the Global Innovation Forum: Silicon Valley, jointly sponsored by SRI, IBM, and San Jose State University and held at SRI on June 16, 2010, and is the Executive Director of the Global Access Innovation Network (GAIN), for continuing to organize the Global Innovation Forum on a biennial basis at different regions of the globe.