Would You Call Your Industry High-Tech?

What industry does your high-tech firm belong to? Is it high-tech, medium-tech or low-tech industry? The paradox is that you can find high-tech companies in every industry, but you can hardly call every industry high-tech. 

Is this really important? Yes, it is. Because your high-tech marketing strategy should be different for each case. 

The major difference will be in customers, competitors and technology development patterns. Moreover, your high-tech industry might turn out to be mature or emerging. 

By definition, high technology industries are intensive in terms of science, research and innovation. Mature industries are high-tech when they rely heavily on knowledge-intensive technologies, for instance, biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, nuclear physics, optics and photonics, materials engineering, mechatronics, electronics, artificial intelligence. Among such mature high-tech industries are aerospace, automotive, energy, software, computers, office machinery, electrical engineering, electronics, electrical equipment, ICT, telecommunications, scientific instruments, environment/green technologies, health care/medical devices, and pharmaceutics. At the same time new technologies can emerge independently into new industries, as well. This might be the case for nano-technology that can give a thrust to nanorobotics, for example.

Overall, the more high-tech dependent industry is, the more it is ad-hoc and risky, and the more opportunities for growth and new products you will find there. In contrary, in low- and medium-tech industries like agriculture, food, metallurgy, construction, or transportation, there is more field for conservative firms that are focused on their well-established markets and partners. 

The relationship between the technology and industry is critical for developing high-tech marketing strategy. The same knowledge intensive technology can be applied in the mature industry, as well as in the emerging one. The major implications of  this difference for marketing strategy will be in the domain of promotion.