What are some of the key factors to address if you want to implement an Open Innovation apprach

Most businesses have traditionally businesses developed their new products using internal Research and Development resources. This model has worked reasonably well, as long as companies had adequate investment in R&D and Marketing – and that the pace of innovation amongst peers remained relatively similar. With the growth and pace of digital technology, the rate of innovation has sharply increased. Companies are finding it increasingly difficult to keep pace or maintain a competitive.

During this time, some companies were already working in collaboration with research institutions and external partners. This was in essence collaboration and sharing of scientific and technological know-how.

In more recent times, this concept of collaboration with external partners received a significant impetus from the work of Henry Chesbrough.  The modern concept of collaboration was termed open innovation. It was coined in the early 2000s by writer Henry Chesbrough.

Chesbrough, a UC Berkeley professor and Silicon Valley veteran, wrote the seminal 2003 text Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology. For modern businesses, this became the go-to source for open innovation insights.

 This concept has gained traction and grown in acceptance across many sectors of industry. Hence, the traditional internal focus started being replaced by the more powerful and effective open innovation (OI) approach. In essence, OI involves harnessing the ideas and development capabilities of outside partners to bring new products, services and methods to market quickly and profitably.  Companies like Reckitt Benckiser, Procter and Gamble, Kraft Foods and Unilever are all leading exponents of OI.  Crowdsourcing is a technique of OI in which companies publish a challenge to a crowd of experts or consumers, who then contribute separately or compete with ideas to solve your problem.