Open Innovation

The concept of open innovation and open innovation refers to the opening of the innovation process of organizations and thus the active strategic use of the outside world in order to increase the innovation potential. The open innovation concept describes the appropriate use of the company in and ausdringendem knowledge, using internal and external marketing channels to generate innovations.

History

The term "open innovation " comes from Henry Chesbrough ( Haas School of Business / University of California, Berkeley ).

Motivation

Gassmann and grandchildren (2006) mention the increasing competitive pressure of globalization, shorter product life cycles and the resulting higher pressure to innovate as key driving factors for the need to optimize the innovation process and to open as a result. In many industries, necessary for the implementation of innovations investments and other inputs overwhelm the resources of individual actors, so that there is a need for innovation in conjunction with other providers, suppliers or customers for reasons of minimizing risk.

Core processes

Open Innovation can be decomposed into three core processes by Gassmann and grandchildren (2006):

( As a prerequisite, however, is to note that the company must have the ability to internalize external knowledge or externalizing internal knowledge. Cf tacit knowledge or tacit knowledge )

Outside-In Process

The outside-in process is the integration of external knowledge in the innovation process. The know- how of suppliers, customers and external partners (eg universities) should be used to increase the quality and speed of the innovation process. In 1986 Eric von Hippel has described the lead-user methodology - so the inclusion particularly advanced in the development of new consumer products. With the help of this instrument, which applies today, the risk of innovation flops and the associated economic risks of a company is to be curbed. He has developed an early method of the outside-in process.

The outside-in process makes it clear that the place is created on the new knowledge, does not have necessary the same as the place to develop the innovation.

Inside- out process

The inside-out process is the externalization of internal knowledge. Companies use this process, for example, to take royalties for patents or innovations that do not use it for its business operations.

The inside-out process makes it clear that the place is created on the knowledge and innovation, does not coincide with the place where the innovation is used and implemented into new products.

Coupled Process

The coupled process is a hybrid of the outside-in process and the Inside-Out Process: The internalization of external knowledge in connection with the externalization of internal knowledge.

The creation of standards and the development of markets are the coupled- process in focus. The particular environment to be actively involved in the development of innovations, and by the simultaneous externalization of this innovation, a market is to build around the innovation (eg, the release of the Solaris source code from Sun Microsystems).

Approaches

Netnography, crowdsourcing and web-based innovation studies are essential approaches to involve users and consumers in new product development. Netnography is a method to use the innovative power of online communities. Crowdsourcing an open group of Internet users who works on a virtual platform to a defined task and thus adds value interactively.

Demarcation

Open Innovation distinguishes itself from closed innovation, ie the understanding of innovation, which refers to the exclusivity of an innovation as the essential bond of Innovators by Schumpeter (1942 ). In addition, the open source development of products to be understood as an extreme form of open innovation.

Other areas of application

In addition to the manufacturing industry open innovation is applied in the financial industry, with its own institutions and products from other companies - offer - even from competitors. This partnership concepts for the distribution of foreign innovations were adapted from the manufacturing industry and have become under the term Open Architecture become a de facto standard in the financial industry. Through this approach, providers of financial products to achieve a more independent advice and better customer acceptance.

In addition to these promising application areas, there are also negative effects of open innovation. Fasnacht (2009) explains, for example, that lead to open business models to complex and uncontrolled systems. This systemic risk would be underestimated, and would be considered triggers of the global financial crisis.