How Open Innovation Initiatives Can Break Down Internal Silos

Silo thinking and organization is one of the toughest obstacles towards innovation. This stifles the holistic mindset and approach needed and it becomes harder to create significant innovation as different business functions tend not to get involved. As a result, companies miss out on the “white space” which I define as the great opportunities that lie between the silos.

The idea of open innovation is to build relationships with external partners. It is, however, great to see that open innovation initiatives also can break down silos and help internal innovation.

The initiative I have in mind is InnoCentive@Work: https://www.innocentive.com/at_work.php by InnoCentive. They describe this offering as a way to apply the best internal resources to the organization’s hardest problems so they are solved faster, better, and cheaper.

They rightly argue that cross-fertilization of ideas and solutions can accelerate R&D by only “inventing the wheel” once and by accessing the currently untapped value of your institutional experience and knowledge. Employees can see and collaborate on each other’s proposed solutions, so results occur faster and are more optimized — as measured by significant business impact, higher levels of solving activity, and freshness of thinking.

Breaking down internal silos is an important issue. Can you share insights on how else this can be done?