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EvAluATing PRoCEss TECHnology 229
within the total stakeholder body? For example, certain legitimate oil and gas extrac-
tion technologies may provoke social opposition.
4 Acceptance and legitimacy of vulnerability – will groups or individuals who feel them-
selves affected by it accept the technology? Although rationally an improved tech-
nology, does it threaten existing jobs?
5 Timing vulnerability – will the technology be implemented either too early or too late
with respect to parallel developments (e.g., competitors’ new technology)?
6 Response vulnerability – will the technology provoke hostile competitor innovations?
Is a ‘technology war’ desirable?

Resource vulnerability
All process technologies depend, for their effective operation, on support services. Spe-
cific skills are needed if the technology is to be installed, maintained, upgraded and
controlled effectively. In other words, the technology has a set of ‘resource depend-
encies’. Changing to a different process technology often means changing this set of
resource dependencies. This may have a positive aspect. The skills, knowledge and expe-
rience necessary to implement and operate the technology can be scarce and difficult
to copy and hence provide a platform for sustainable advantage. But there can also be
a downside to a changed set of resources dependencies. For example, the specific skills
needed to implement or operate a new process technology, because they are scarce,
could become particularly valuable in the labour market. The company is vulnerable to
the risk of the staff that have these skills leaving in order to leverage their value.
Issues of trust and power also influence the vulnerability created by dependence
upon external organisations, such as suppliers and customers. If there is a high degree
of trust between a firm and its technology supplier, it can be entirely appropriate to
become dependent for the installation, maintenance and upgrading of process tech-
nology upon a particular external provider. Dependence can also work the other
way. Customers may ask for a particular piece of technology to be dedicated to their
business. Again, this can be entirely legitimate if the operation trusts its customer to
continue generating work for them over a suitable period. However, such exclusive
relationships inevitably introduce vulnerabilities. For example, suppose an operation
is choosing between alternative suppliers of software. One supplier seems to be particu-
larly price-competitive, very service-oriented and has developed a particularly effective
leading-edge application. Unfortunately, this supplier is also smaller than the alterna-
tive suppliers. Although its products and service may be superior, it is itself more vul-
nerable to business pressures. If it went out of business the company would be left with
unsupported infrastructure. Under these circumstances the company may decide that
choosing this supplier would expose it to unacceptable levels of vulnerability.

Financial vulnerability
By ‘financial vulnerability, we mean the financial exposure that adopting a new tech-
nology poses to the adopting organisation. Of course, financial vulnerability can result
from market and/or resource vulnerability. Unexpected market conditions or failure
of the technology to perform as expected can both seriously impact the financial con-
sequences of investing in new process technology. Revenues, running costs, capital
requirements and the resulting cash flows will all be affected by market and resource
vulnerabilities. At the very least, one would expect any firm to explore the sensitivity
of financial outcomes to possible deviations from expected market and resource-based

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