Opposed to companies having private research laboratories (closed innovation), there has been a shift towards companies sharing or licensing research (open innovation). Below is a diagram of closed innovation, on the top, versus open innovation, on the bottom.
Open innovation allows companies to bring technology to the market faster, provides feedback from a variety of consumers, and overall creates a win-win situation for everyone.
So why is this just starting now?
Technology, especially social networking, has made it beneficial for companies to work together rather than against each other. We have already seen this shift between generations; in school we constantly work on group projects, whereas the generation before is use to individual work.
Are we going to experience a complete shift to sharing everything online? If so, is that a good thing?
It all makes sense to me - why wouldn't you ask the customer what they want? Seems like some companies (especially Google) just have it right.
ReplyDeleteSharing company information online may not be that beneficial in the long run, because once it is out their anybody is they really want to get into that information and possibly use it against the company. So will sharing ideas and such is cool, exposing a company too much online I don't think is a very good thing.
ReplyDeleteI think open innovation leads to great things. Ben has a point; without open innovation, would there be the company of Google? I don't think so.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, two (or 100) heads are better than, one right?
But that question leads to a good point in the argument of innovation and efficiency. You will never get 100 people to agree on something as quickly as you will when one person is heading innovation. Just a thought.