Open innovation is any action which contributes to innovation which includes people outside the company (customers). All companies use some form of open innovation and get substantial benefits from it – revenue increase and higher competitiveness. However, open innovation is often informal, invisible, accidental, and spontaneous which makes it a risk. No source of revenue or competitiveness should remain informal and hidden.
Some companies try to formalize open innovation, but these projects depend on the initiative of an isolated team and are usually done as open calls. Other formalization attempts are collection of customer feedback through social media and web forms. These projects are short lived and sometimes more restricting than enabling because they are outside of the company culture.
Ideal approach is open innovation automation which constantly provides all teams with innovation suggestions, product improvements, connections to experts, and customer and competitor analysis, and is part of a culture instead of an informal or isolated project. In such a way revenue and competitiveness benefits from open innovation can be maximized and managed.
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