A key to technology evaluation, and capturing the value of technology and new products is asking the right questions: 

• Who is the competition and what does the competitive landscape look like; will competitors follow and in what timeframe?
• Can existing technology be used in a novel fashion to undermine the new product?
• What kind of people are needed to make this technology and/or product work and to build a strong business platform for the future?
• What's the future going to look like?
• How should the new technology be positioned for the future ? This new product? This company?
• What social, political, economic, technical, legal or other barriers exist?

Consumers are very sensitive about what they buy. They are buying, after all, one of the most intimate and personal products possible – food. Consumer expectations around the world can have a big impact on product acceptance and use and should never be underestimated.

Sometimes it simply does not matter what the science says. And it doesn't have to be a large number of consumers for there to be an effect commercially. Right or wrong, science is not always the issue. For any number of reasons, some people want more that just the facts from their food, for their families, and science is simply not always enough.

One of the biggest problems in the life sciences industry is that general understanding of science lags behind many of the most recent and powerful advancements in agricultural and food production. In addition, the very idea of food is filled with so many social, cultural, emotional and personal elements that technology isn't necessarily viewed as an important or primary element of food.

In some instances this complexity, together with past experiences and perceptions, leads to consumer uncertainty or suspicion and a general feeling of "loss of control" which can serve as a platform for resistance to the technological innovations that underpin many agricultural life science-based products.

People are the most critical component of developing sustainable results in the life sciences and particularly in agriculture; the challenge of finding the right people can be substantial.

Demographics suggest that the number of people with hands on agricultural experience is declining in most regions of the world. Most people don't live on a farm anymore. Most people don't attend universities to earn agriculturally-related degrees. 

So the challenge is trying to determine where to get people who are interested in and able to understand the needs of agriculture and its customers in addition to being capable of running the business. How to train them? How to introduce them to and bring them into this network of complexity?  Should they be people who think about agriculture more traditionally? Is new thinking the best way forward? Is a combination of the old and new preferred? How should new people be brought into an organization, many of which are built on more traditional agricultural thinking, without having them becoming frustrated that they're one person among 10,000 trying to bring new perspectives and ideas to a situation?

In the search for relevant and useful technology, buying another firm may be both the fastest and easiest way to bring new technology and products online. On the other hand, most mergers, acquisitions and alliances fail at some level. They don't create the value that the parties involved purport to be creating.

Sometimes a company may be too far behind the curve to catch up in some critical area. Buying technology, or another company that has it, may be the only way to stay in the game. But this can create a whole new set of problems around integrating people, products and technology between existing systems, working with new and different markets, ensuring the right people are in the right positions and so on. 

It is important to ask:

• How best can the integrated value of two companies be assessed?
  
• How should company technologies be integrated most effectively?
  
• How will this change the position and strategy of the newly integrated firm?
  
• How and when will new products be brought to market?
  
• How are talented people retained and motivated?

Of greatest importance is to stay connected to the impact of integration efforts on people. At least initially most people are more interested in how changes will affect them personally; health care, position, geographic location, benefits, etc. than they are in bigger picture business and strategic plans. Addressing such concerns early on in the process is a key element of any successful business integration effort.