I lead the business development and strategy for the CPG industry at Dassault Systems and I’m a new blogger to the site. I see this as an opportunity to exchange ideas and I welcome your input. Obviously you can respond directly on the blog or also feel free to e-mail me at rosemary.grabowksi@3ds.com. Here goes:
Recently I participated in the Marcus Evans Open Innovation Conference. I was impressed by several thought-provoking CPG company leaders as they shared their challenges and successes in their attempts to infuse open innovation into their organizations.
So what exactly is open innovation? Wikipedia describes it as follows:
The central idea behind open innovation is that in a world of widely distributed knowledge, companies cannot afford to rely entirely on their own research but should instead buy or license processes or inventions (e.g. patents) from other companies. In addition, internal inventions not being used in a firm’s business should be taken outside the company (e.g., through licensing, joint ventures spin-offs).
The globalization of business, combined with an international economic downturn, has created both an opportunistic and, at the same time, a difficult environment for consumer packaged goods companies. One way out may be to attract, commercialize and leverage IP generated outside your organization. More executives will begin to lead change in their organizations toward a more open way in which to innovate.
A phrase becoming much more popular is “proudly invented elsewhere”, leveraging intellectual property derived outside of your organization but commercialized by you. This leading trend will contribute to better, faster, smarter innovation, even in a global and challenging economy.
So where is your company on this journey toward a more open environment? What have you tried? What worked well? What failed? How do you capture these learnings for future application?
Cheers,
Rose
P.S. If you’re into open innovation, you may enjoy these blogs focused on the subject:
- OpenInnovation Blog founder Alexander Schroll is working on a PhD about it.
- Innovation.net Blog on entrepreneurial approaches to innovation by Mike Docherty.
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