Visualizing the invisible the relentless pursuit of MTech Imaging

📝 Abstract

This teaching case describes the challenges faced by MTech Imaging, a Singapore small and medium enterprise (SME) that specializes in providing thermal imaging solutions. In recent years, the company has relentlessly strived to become a digital innovative solution provider. This push has led to the development of a disruptive digital innovation called the AXION platform. Students are provided with vivid accounts of the journey undertaken by MTech to develop the AXION platform, the industry it competes in, and the challenges it faces in attempting to disrupt its industry through the introduction of the AXION platform. The case seeks to achieve three learning objectives: (1) allow students to learn from MTechs experiences in developing disruptive digital innovation; (2) immerse students as senior management of MTech to substantiate the best digital innovation strategy to adopt in order to disrupt its industry; and (3) expose students to the challenges of driving the adoption of such digital innovation in the market. It is hoped that the case can inspire students to become effective digital innovation entrepreneurs.

💡 Analysis

This teaching case describes the challenges faced by MTech Imaging, a Singapore small and medium enterprise (SME) that specializes in providing thermal imaging solutions. In recent years, the company has relentlessly strived to become a digital innovative solution provider. This push has led to the development of a disruptive digital innovation called the AXION platform. Students are provided with vivid accounts of the journey undertaken by MTech to develop the AXION platform, the industry it competes in, and the challenges it faces in attempting to disrupt its industry through the introduction of the AXION platform. The case seeks to achieve three learning objectives: (1) allow students to learn from MTechs experiences in developing disruptive digital innovation; (2) immerse students as senior management of MTech to substantiate the best digital innovation strategy to adopt in order to disrupt its industry; and (3) expose students to the challenges of driving the adoption of such digital innovation in the market. It is hoped that the case can inspire students to become effective digital innovation entrepreneurs.

📄 Content

Australasian Conference on Information Systems Goh et al. 2015, Adelaide Visualizing the invisible 1

Visualizing the invisible – the relentless pursuit of MTech Imaging
Teaching Case

Jenson Chong-Leng Goh
School of Business SIM University Singapore Email: jensongohcl@unisim.edu.sg
Jeffery Beng-Huat Tan SIM Professional Development Singapore Institute of Management Singapore Email: jtan@sim.edu.sg Janice Sio-Nee Tan SIM Professional Development Singapore Institute of Management Singapore Email: janicetansn@sim.edu.sg

Abstract This teaching case describes the challenges faced by MTech Imaging, a Singapore small and medium enterprise (SME) that specializes in providing thermal imaging solutions. In recent years, the company has relentlessly strived to become a digital innovative solution provider. This push has led to the development of a disruptive digital innovation called the AXION platform. Students are provided with vivid accounts of the journey undertaken by MTech to develop the AXION platform, the industry it competes in, and the challenges it faces in attempting to disrupt its industry through the introduction of the AXION platform. The case seeks to achieve three learning objectives: (1) allow students to learn from MTech’s experiences in developing disruptive digital innovation; (2) immerse students as senior management of MTech to substantiate the best digital innovation strategy to adopt in order to disrupt its industry; and (3) expose students to the challenges of driving the adoption of such digital innovation in the market. It is hoped that the case can inspire students to become effective digital innovation entrepreneurs. Keywords: Disruptive innovations, IS strategy, IS and Competitive Strategy, Small-medium enterprise, Teaching case Australasian Conference on Information Systems Goh et al. 2015, Adelaide Visualizing the invisible 2

1 Introduction
It was a warm morning in Singapore.
But it was not as ‘warm’ as the intense discussion in the MTech Imaging Pte Ltd (MTech) office located at the Changi Business Park. Three senior executives responsible for the future of the company were debating and making bold plans to make history in the thermal imaging industry. The room was filled with excitement and anxieties as the discussion heated up. “I think we are creeping into a blue ocean market when we make this technology available to our customers who often say that if a company is to come up with such technology, they will definitely buy it.” – Mr Richard Yong, Chief Operating Officer, Miltrade Holdings Pte Ltd. Richard is the Chief Operating Officer of Miltrade Holdings Pte Ltd, the parent company of MTech. The technology that Richard referred to is MTech’s ground-breaking open camera platform, AXION (see Exhibit 1). Conceived and developed entirely by MTech’s in-house research and development team, this platform is a fully programmable and customizable infrared processing platform that incorporates a custom optical design, multi-brand image fusion, non-optical sensors, and advanced computational imaging techniques and applications to create extremely high quality infrared images that were previously unseen in the thermal imaging industry (see Exhibit 1 for details).

Exhibit 1: Summary of the capabilities and features of the AXION platform “I believe law enforcement is going to be our big customers because AXION is going to be light and cheap enough to be installed onto a handheld, which allows law enforcers to take it out into the field.” – Mr Bob Nishi, General Manager, MTech Imaging Pte Ltd. “Bob, we need to think about what we can offer to our customers first. I think we need a platform where we allow researchers and programmers to sell their applications and algorithms [in thermal imaging processing] to us and then we integrate them into our AXION technology. With sufficient contributions from these communities, we will be able to create a repertoire of software libraries that will make AXION extremely attractive to any customers. Then, we can determine the customer segments to target based on these contributions” – Mr Baljit Singh, Executive Director, MTech Imaging Pte Ltd. Since the mid of 2013, the meetings among the three senior executives namely, Richard, Baljit and Bob, had been dominated by this relentless push and heated debate to fulfil the full potentials of its AXION platform. As a SME1, the company has limited financial and human resources. The three senior executives had been debating passionately about the various strategic moves that can provide the maximum benefits to MTech using the least resources, but they were unable to settle on the solution.

1 According to SPRING Singapore, a SME in Singapore is d

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