PRODUCTS & SERVICES

Open Innovation in New Product Development 

Open innovation, in general, refers to no longer relying solely on the company’s internal resources for innovation, but looking to external sources such as customers and suppliers to complement internal know-how and capabilities.  Connected innovators have a special role in this process of externally searching for innovation. 

Connected innovators, defined as persons who build relationships and find solutions easily, drive the search for and collaboration with external partners. In other words, open innovation would hardly be possible if there were no connected innovators. Connected innovators are connectors: they bring together two parties in open innovation and thereby make a much more creative, efficient, and powerful innovation possible: “It is not sufficient to be focused on external innovation. We’ve realized that the important thing is connection – or what we call connected innovation”.

The benefits of connected innovation are

• Bringing skills, expertise, and experience together

• Complementing resources the partner(s) do not have

• Combining good ideas and extracting the best ones together for maximum effectiveness, widening the horizon of the whole team

• Increasing speed to market by helping each other in the process

• Lowering cost and risk, as the company does not have to do everything on its own and saves capital investments

• Closer collaboration with open innovation partners: not just directing them what to do, but going together through the whole process: defining objectives, roles, timing, evaluation…

• Enhanced communication between the teams, saving time and cost

• Directing as well as focusing the joint efforts to reach the best possible outcome