Asia, Europe Miss Out on Open Innovation
Having spent a few days at the great CoDev conference in Phoenix, U.S. it becomes even more clear to me that American companies are far head on the future of innovation which will be not only global but also open.
One major reason is the American eco-system for open innovation stakeholders such as corporate practitioners, academics, consultants and service providers. This eco-system is very well networked and the stakeholders help each other by sharing insights and lessons that propel the entire open innovation movement forward. Everyone benefits.
I have attended several open innovation conferences in the U.S. in the last couple of months and I find it quite interesting that Asian and European companies are non-present with Korean LG Electronics as a notable exception even though there are no such conferences in their parts of the world.
What should the Asian and European companies that are serious about open innovation do?
Go to the U.S. to learn. You have to go to the U.S. to learn more on open innovation or you will get even further behind. This is where it all happens right now and even though you can learn a lot through blogs and articles, you still need to connect with proven open innovation practitioners and share insights and experiences.
Communicate more and better. Let the eco-system in your region – as well as globally – know what you are doing. Tell about your open innovation initiatives, share your learnings and ask for input. Open innovation needs to become top-of-mind both internally and externally and not just within the innovation teams.
Help develop better eco-systems for open innovation stakeholders. Companies need to spend some resources on developing regional eco-systems and participate in the global ones. On a regional level, they can do this by helping event organizers, participate in peer networking groups and meet with service providers (but don’t buy unless they can really add value) and academics to share views and insights.
Let me know what you think.
Stefan,
Being that little contentious here with your opening remarks. I think there are differences that need less of a reaction just emerging from what sounds a highly focused, successful conference at CoDev. As you will be going to the FFE in Amsterdam that has a broader agenda you might be able to measure the pulse of both a little better then.
My take on it is, the American company is more open, it is more enthusiastic to engage in new ways and often pioneers these but I would feel the models adopted by Unilever, Neste, Reckitt Benckiser to name a few, are far more mature, structured and integrated but in different ways.
Americans do open themselves up for questioning and learning but they sometimes follow the established practice, the alternatives are slower to see but in the end it is the results in final product, not the noise of how to get there and both have considerable way to go to get this well worked out.
As for Asia, well it is well behind on structural innovation but has two real pluses, it is much better at scouting and sourcing around the world and has pockets of research institutes that collaborate far more closely within their national society to alter existing practices. Working there for 12 years sometimes direct comparisons like you have made are difficult to make without a deeper investigation
Hi Paul,
I will unfortunately not make it to FEI in Amsterdam. A shame as this would be have been a good opportunity to identify more European open innovation cases.
There are – no doubt – European as well as Asian companies that get open innovation, but some of the U.S. cases presented at CoDev were very impressive. And my point is that they are better at sharing their insights than their European and Asian counterparts. This will be critical in the long run. At least, this is what I see as an non corporate practitioners following this movemen.
Stefan