Adding external elements to an internal innovation program can prove a true rite of passage. The transition requires an open culture, employee empowerment, and executive commitment. In other words, considerable maturity (1).
At our recent annual customer forum, INNOVATE Bonn 2019, I invited Fujitsu’s Head of Ecosystem Engagement, Andy Seferta, to join me in leading an interactive workshop on external innovation programs. In the workshop, participants explored how the practice of open innovation is impacting businesses everywhere as well as how they can benefit by introducing an open innovation initiative. During the workshop, we challenged the 30 participants to think about common fears related to external innovation initiatives and how to resolve them.
The three main fears that surfaced were managing intellectual property, establishing and scaling the open innovation program, and not communicating effectively. If any of these issues have kept you from starting an open innovation initiative, read on to learn how you can address them and implement an open innovation initiative without worry.
Collaboration with external partners seems to be at odds with the very purpose of IP management. That is, to protect/provide exclusive control over certain ideas. In reality, the strategic use of IP or complete avoidance of it can enhance the returns on open innovation instead of crippling them.
While engaging in open innovation can lead to unintended spillovers, focusing too much on IP can make valuable collaborators such as startups and small- to mid-sized enterprises less willing to collaborate.
To address this potential issue, innovation leaders should look to:
Some innovation leaders fear that engaging in open innovation will likely result in an inability to process the information received. However, by approaching the right partners and putting the correct knowledge exchange mechanisms in place, an external input can be quickly and effectively absorbed/followed up on.
Open innovation can overwhelm, but only if left undirected. This is precisely why innovation leaders should:
Not everyone understands open innovation in the same way. Open innovation will often mean different things to different internal stakeholders (marketing, sales, R&D, procurement, HR, etc.) as well as to external ones (suppliers, researchers, customers, etc.). To some people, open innovation could mean buying some patents. To other people, it might be building networks. There also might be miscommunication around the purpose of the program, resulting in your internal audience feeling like they're being replaced by external people as opposed to being empowered to work with externals.
To address potential communication issues, leaders should:
In a nutshell, addressing the fear of IP-related complications, the fear of scaling, as well as the potential miscommunication, represent three essential first steps in establishing a healthy open innovation program. Once these fears (and others like them – such as the fear that open innovation cannot be “closed”) are out of the way, innovation leaders can look to develop their capabilities and engage more meaningfully with their partners.
As they proceed with their developments, however, leaders should also keep in mind that open innovation programs, just like any other innovation initiatives, are not ends in themselves but rather a means to an end. In other words, collaborations with academia, suppliers, customers, etc., often serve bigger purposes that go beyond the actual campaign/challenge. These goals can relate to digitizing the organization, achieving customer-centricity, enacting large-scale, societal change (collective impact creation), becoming a solution partner of choice, and so on.
Finally, innovation managers must put some basic structures and processes in place to help create continuity for their open innovation programs. In other words, they must look to institutionalize the process of collaborating with various audience groups and address any cultural issues that might emerge in this respect.
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