Business case for a technology intelligence subscription: price the wrong bet, not the hours

Build the case on the cost of one wrong technology bet, not on research hours saved. Hours saved is the small line in the model. The large one is what it costs to back the route that loses, and the GetFocus backtests price it: $20B+ sunk into hydrogen fuel cells while batteries out-improved them from 2001, and $19B paid in 2015 to catch up on a flash-storage future the rate flagged 14 years earlier. Anchor the case on one live decision and the capital riding on it. The subscription pays for itself if it changes one call whose downside exceeds its fee.

What goes into a business case for technology intelligence?

Define the purchase first. Technology intelligence here means evidence on which competing technologies will win in a domain where you own a decision. It is not IT asset management and it is not sales intelligence, two things the term gets confused with.

Then fit the case on one page, in this order:

1. The decision. Which technology call is on the table, by when, and who owns it.
2. The value at risk. The capital the decision commits over the life of the plant, platform or programme.
3. The alternatives. Doing nothing, a consultancy study, an in-house team, a subscription.
4. The full cost. Fee, onboarding and the internal time each option needs.
5. The test. A bounded trial on the live decision, with success criteria agreed before it starts.
6. The renewal rule. What has to be true after 12 months to keep paying.

Budget holders sign this version because every line maps to something they already own: a decision on their agenda and capital on their books.

How do you put a number on the value?

Three value lines, in order of size.

The wrong bet avoided. Rare, and the largest number in the case. History has already priced it:

In each case the improvement rate pointed at the winner years early, computed only from patents public at the time.

The winner backed earlier. Timing is worth money even when you pick right. The GetFocus Kodak backtest separated digital from film in 1983, 17 years before film sales fell off a cliff in 2000.

Expert capacity released. The line most cases lead with. Christophe Perthuisot, former SVP of R&D at Moët Hennessy: "In a week with GetFocus, we achieved more than what we previously could in nine months." Count it as capacity, not cash, unless you can name the spend it removes.

How do you calculate the break-even?

Write one sentence with your own numbers: we are committing X to route A; if a competing route is out-improving it, being wrong costs Y. Divide the annual fee by Y. The result is the probability of being wrong at which the subscription pays for itself, assuming an early signal lets you change course. When the fee is 1% of the downside, a 1% chance of backing the wrong route covers it.

That probability can be estimated rather than guessed. Farmer and Lafond tested forecasts on 53 technologies by hindcasting and showed how to estimate the probability that one technology outperforms another by a given date (Research Policy, 2016). The GetFocus rate applies the same logic to your domain: if a rival route keeps improving faster, the crossover is a matter of time (why technology improvement is predictable).

This case fits any domain where one decision commits serious capital to a technology route for years. If the need is a one-off literature check, buy a report instead.

Is a forecasting subscription worth it compared to doing it ourselves?

It is worth it when two things hold: you face technology decisions large enough to matter every year, and the subscription gives you evidence your team cannot reproduce at a sensible cost.

For GetFocus that evidence is the improvement rate, validated on 150+ domains at R² ≈ 0.7, and the monthly reading behind it. Doing it yourselves means building and validating the method first, then reading every new filing in the domain every month.

What does the subscription cost you beyond the fee?

The Annual Domain Subscription is priced per domain: one strategic technology area you own a decision in, such as low-cost EV batteries or barrier coatings for food packaging. Each covers up to 50 competing technologies for 12 months, with five platform seats, monthly deep-dive updates, trigger alerts and a quarterly executive review.

The internal time is small and predictable: one strategic question in plain language, a sign-off on the list of routes the agents scout, and the quarterly review. Put those hours in the model next to the fee. Cost scales with the number of domains you put under watch.

How do you get budget holders to pay when R&D budgets are tight?

Sell the decision, not the tool. Pick a call already on the agenda, such as a portfolio review, a stage gate or a capex approval. Show what a wrong call would cost and what the subscription would tell you before it is made.

A tight budget strengthens the case. With fewer bets, each one has to be on the route improving fastest, and something has to give. Perthuisot names the hard part: "If you act on it, you may have to cut other projects. You cannot fund everything." The rate tells you which ones to cut, the same question a prioritisation review has to answer.

Make the first step free. The GetFocus Decision Brief runs one live decision through the method in 48 hours at no cost: a first-pass radar, an improvement rate per competing technology, the triggers we would set and a 30-minute readout with an analyst. The budget holder sees the output on their own decision before anyone asks for money. Then ask for one domain, not a programme.

Should central R&D or the business units pay?

Per-domain pricing makes the split simple. A domain that serves one business unit's decision, say a barrier coating for one packaging line, belongs on that unit's budget. A domain that shapes the whole portfolio, such as the next battery chemistry for every vehicle platform, belongs to central R&D. Show each unit what it uses before you charge it back.

How will you know it paid off?

Write the renewal rule into the case now. Count decisions, not logins: calls changed or confirmed with evidence, triggers that fired and were acted on, verdicts that moved and the portfolio moves that followed. If none of those happened in 12 months, do not renew.

FAQ

What ROI should we expect from a technology intelligence subscription?

Skip the percentage and show the break-even: the fee divided by what a wrong call would cost. If the subscription changes one decision whose downside exceeds its fee, it has paid for itself.

Can we count expert hours saved as savings?

Count them as capacity. They become cash only when you can name the spend they remove, such as a consultancy study you no longer commission.

How do we test the business case before we sign?

Run a live decision through the free 48-hour Decision Brief and compare the output with what your team would have concluded. If the question opens bigger ones, a Decision Sprint takes one decision to a board-ready roadmap in four to six weeks.

Who should sign off the subscription?

The owner of the decision the domain covers. Domains that cut across the whole portfolio sit with central R&D.