The Graveyard of Good Intentions

Why Governments Launch Technology Strategies That Cannot Win - And the Ten Golden Rules to Fix Them

By: William Webb, Stephen Temple

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Many countries have ambitious technology strategies to secure sovereignty or even world-leadership in areas such as 5G or AI, strategies that are ever-more important in an increasingly fractured world. Such countries often possess excellent research capabilities, powerful companies or strong political will. Yet recent history shows that these strategies rarely delivered global success.

This book shows that success depends not on ambition or scientific excellence alone. It depends on whether structural foundations are in place at launch: governance authority, economic logic, and incentive alignment behind clear and specific objectives.

The book starts by looking at two different programmes in the UK – GSM and 5G. In both cases government intervened with the aim of making the UK a global leader. In the case of GSM it succeeded, with one UK operator becoming the largest in the world and UK consumers benefiting from rapid deployment of four new digital mobile infrastructures. In the case of 5G it failed completely, with the UK languishing low on all measures of 5G capabilities.

From detailed analysis of both programmes, the Ten Golden Rules emerge as a success checklist for testing whether technology initiatives are built to secure a global competitive advantage. While the rules may appear common sense they are rarely applied. This is due to the constraints of a flawed legacy frameworks in which Ministers and Officials operate. The choice is too often to follow the path of least resistance to get things moving. This leads to the worst of all worlds - wasted resources and global leadership forever out of reach.

Hence the Ten Golden Rules are of great importance to Officials and Ministers, as they provide a timely evidence base to fix the imperfections of their legacy framework before launching their next technology initiative.

Successful government interventions to deliver national technology capabilities have never been more important in a fractured world and at a time when technology promises revolutionary change. This book, with its Ten Golden Rules, provides a practical framework that can change the history of failure and in doing so change the future.