sábado, 21 de marzo de 2020

Structuring open innovation

For innovation to take place, spaces and processes need to be set up that facilitate the exploitation of the knowledge, ideas and experiences of the organisations and people that have a relationship with a business.

As we have already outlined in our article Diversity for innovation, disruptive ideas and diversity go hand in hand.  And this link is strengthened when diversity brings together people with backgrounds that are not conditioned by the reality and the day-to-day life of the business. 

It was Professor profesor Henry Chesbrough who first proposed an innovation model that went beyond the walls of the business. He called it Open Innovation (OI), and it is now one of the cornerstones of business development. The achievements of companies like Cisco, Xerox, GE, Honeywell, Lindt etc. thanks to OI are recurring examples in the research and literature on the topic.  However, as Professor Chesbrough notes, OI is not a strategy valid only for large corporations.  It is imperative for any organisation, irrespective of size or sector, as all of them need to innovate to compete in a constantly evolving environment. 

OI makes this process easier. As well as multiplying the number of ideas and creative solutions offered, it is actually profitable.  Every business has external relationships.  Customers, suppliers, institutions or competitors make up their network of contacts.  Reinforcing bridges so that these connections become funnels for ideas is the goal of the Open Innovation model. As we can see, it capitalises on relationships and is based on using external knowledge, experiences and technology in order to innovate.   Likewise, as Chesbrough emphasises, OI is a two-way street where innovation flows “from outside in” and “from inside out”.   In other words, the organisation’s own knowledge can be used by third parties, which could lead to the exploitation of intellectual property or an accumulation of business spin-offs.

However, words that are easy to write such as collaboration, creativity or openness are not so easy to put into practice, even less so when they involve a number of people who have little in common.  The management of diversity and open innovation itself requires attention and procedures to be put in place.  Dynamics which allow us to unleash internal creativity and exploit external creativity (Docherty, 2015). The CreO project, is a proposal for exploiting the work placement or apprenticeship that all vocational training students must undertake in order to achieve their qualification.  By placing the focus on the creative potential of CCI professionals, it provides the necessary methodology and tools to integrate and consolidate innovation in the industrial sector thanks to people with creative backgrounds that are external to the company.  Delimiting this collaboration also contributes by encouraging and placing value on the management of both parties’ reputations.  This is a critical factor in tackling openness processes and is the starting point for establishing an honest collaboration based on mutual trust.

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