SciTech Patent Art Presents at IC-SDV 2018 on Enterprise Competitive Technology Intelligence
Presented at IC-SDV 2018 (International Conference on Science and Technology Indicators & Digital Libraries) | Speaker: Dr. Srin Achanta, Managing Director, SciTech Patent Art Services
In 2018, Dr. Srin Achanta, Managing Director of SciTech Patent Art Services, took the stage at the prestigious IC-SDV international conference to present a real-world case study on building and running an enterprise-grade Competitive Technical Intelligence (CTI) program. The presentation drew on SciTech’s hands-on experience implementing CTI solutions for global clients, and offered a detailed roadmap for organizations looking to gain a strategic edge through structured technology monitoring.
About the Speaker
Dr. Srinivas Achanta brings deep cross-industry expertise to SciTech’s leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University and an MBA in Strategy from the University of Michigan, and has prior experience at The Procter & Gamble Company, Booz & Company, and Honeywell Corporation. He founded SciTech Patent Art in 2002 and joined the company full time in 2012 to lead firm strategy and the development of AI-powered analytics solutions.
What Is Competitive Technical Intelligence?
The presentation opened by defining CTI as the systematic process of gathering information from multiple sources, analyzing the most relevant data, and drawing actionable conclusions about competitors or technology domains of interest. At its core, CTI is about understanding what is happening in the external world so that organizations can act strategically — and, critically, about identifying risks and opportunities before they become obvious to others.
Why Every Innovating Company Needs a CTI Program
Dr. Srinivas Achanta outlined the growing business case for CTI: technology landscapes are evolving rapidly, competitive threats and opportunities are global in nature, and decision-makers need timely, reliable intelligence to stay ahead. A well-designed CTI program enables companies to track emerging technologies, monitor competitor moves, spot disruptive innovations early, and identify unexplored white spaces for R&D investment.
How SciTech Designs and Runs a CTI Program
The presentation walked through SciTech’s structured two-phase approach:
The Setup Phase involves scoping the program (defining which companies and technologies to monitor), developing a custom taxonomy that reflects the client’s business language, building a cloud-based CTI portal, mining historical data — patents, scientific publications, news, and product launches — going back five to ten years, and preparing an initial set of “Connect-the-Dots” summaries to establish a baseline.
The Maintenance Phase shifts to ongoing monitoring using web scraping automation, AI-assisted screening and categorization, periodic human quality checks, and quarterly analyst-led summary presentations. SciTech’s use of AI in the maintenance phase is key to keeping long-term costs manageable while maintaining high data quality.
The CTI Portal — Key Features
A centerpiece of the presentation was SciTech’s proprietary cloud-based CTI portal, which provides clients with a centralized, globally accessible intelligence hub. Key features include a custom taxonomy structure developed in collaboration with subject matter experts, archived patents, scientific literature, news, and product launch data — all hyperlinked to original sources and downloadable in Excel format, an interactive executive dashboard with customized visualization charts, personalized email alert subscriptions by company or technology topic, archived Connect-the-Dots summaries, and a user support channel for feedback and queries.
Program Benefits
For organizations that implement CTI effectively, Dr. Achanta highlighted several strategic advantages: a clearer view of how technology spaces are evolving over time, early identification of freedom-to-operate risks and potential design-around opportunities, the ability to identify potential partners or acquisition targets based on innovation activity, better utilization of subject matter experts’ time by centralizing intelligence gathering, and a more creative and cross-disciplinary R&D culture when researchers are regularly exposed to the broader innovation landscape.
SciTech’s Growing Global Reach
By the time of the IC-SDV 2018 conference, SciTech Patent Art had served over 300 clients across the US, Japan, and Europe, with a team of 90+ advanced-degree scientists and technologists, supported by a dedicated AI and Big Data analytics team.
Explore the Complete Slide Deck
Global Competitive Technology Intelligence: A Case Study | IC-SDV 2018
Interested in building a Competitive Technical Intelligence program for your Organization? Contact our team to learn how SciTech Patent Art can help.
