Open Innovation – Model of Success

In previous articles, we have learned interesting and useful knowledge around Open Innovation. To see the “breakthrough” of Open Innovation, we invite you to continue with BambuUP with 04 typical examples of the successful application of this model.

GENERAL ELECTRONIC (GE)

GE was one of the first companies to implement open innovation models. The GE Open Innovation message speaks to GE’s understanding of solving the world’s problems through community sourcing innovation. GE focuses on collaboration between professionals and entrepreneurs from everywhere who share ideas and solve problems.

With the Ecomagination project to address environmental challenges through innovative solutions, GE has spent $17 billion on R&D and received total revenue of $232 billion over the past decade.

One of GE’s other projects is First Build, a co-creation platform that brings designers, engineers, and like-minded people together. Businesses can buy winning ideas. Concept production is done through GE’s factory, where members have access to the machines and tools needed to turn their ideas into real products.

NASA (NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION)

Open innovation has been applied by NASA to build an algorithm that helps optimize medical kits for astronauts. NASA has partnered with TopCoder, Harvard Business School and London Business School. TopCoder provided 2,833 submission codes to help NASA build this algorithm. The winners are awarded a $24,000 cash prize plus a chance to see the next shuttle launches.

Adopting open innovation has helped NASA solve problems through the collaboration of programmers and software enthusiasts from around the world. Solutions are provided from the UK, Japan, Indonesia and Brazil. The adoption of open innovation created a cost and time efficient solution that could not be achieved by using an in-house team alone.

LEGO

In the ’90s, LEGO faced tough times as sales and revenue plummeted. After this period, decisions to change strategy pushed the company to be more innovative than before. To create LEGO sets that hit the market, LEGO launched LEGO Ideas, an open innovation model-based initiative.

In the LEGO Ideas online website, consumers can design their own LEGO sets using LEGO bricks or 3D desktop applications. These designs will be voted on, and when an idea reaches a certain number of votes, LEGO will develop the design into a new product and award a small portion of the revenue to the creator of the set.

This model puts the consumer at the center of the innovation process. This co-creation platform also helps to reduce the risk of innovation as feedback from the website can provide business analysts with the possibility of new product success.

SAMSUNG

While Apple adopts a closed innovation model, Samsung adopts an open innovation model through the Samsung Accelerator program. This initiative aims to build collaboration between designers and innovators to come up with different solutions. The program provides office space, static capital, and product support that helps them build software and services. Currently, the Samsung Accelerator program is available in New York, Palo Alto, and San Francisco.

According to an interview with Marc Shedroff, Vice President of Samsung’s Open Innovation Center (OIC), “The OIC has four groups, the first is a partnership group – a commercial partnership between us and a third party. father. The second is the joint venture group, i.e. R&D investment in startups. The third is the M&A team and the fourth involves incubators based in Palo Alto and New York City.”

Open innovation helps the world’s leading corporations gain market advantage, enhance competitiveness and solve many business challenges. The examples above show how large companies have adopted open innovation to achieve different goals. However, open innovation can also be adopted by small and medium-sized companies to achieve similar goals and bring them market competitiveness.

Source: https://www.ennomotive.com/open-innovation/