GGI Innovation Summit | Seminar Module Abstract 7 - Open & Outsourced Innovation

Open & Outsourced Innovation - 2004 To Now

"Open Innovation" has been the rage since 2004. A great number of books that were published on the subject in the late 1990s and early 2000s have fueled a critical mass of demand from industrial and high tech organizations. Basically, Open Innovation is any development approach that is not exclusively 100% internal. When the majority of development is internal and a small amount occurs outside, or there is a high external supplier content in cost of goods sold, we often call it "Outsourcing." At the same time, Outsourcing can refer to 100% external development. At the moment, people are writing about these two subjects as if they were separate. In the next decade, they will become almost synonymous.

Open & Outsourced Innovation - Literature Augments Employee Abilities

To start, a number of brief "book reviews" will be presented that get at the range and span of the subject matter so as to identify the population of alternatives and opportunities that are Open and Outsourced Innovation.

Due to the somewhat soft nature of this subject matter, a handful of books together corral the broad nature of this topic. Attendees at prior Innovation Summits have found these book reviews useful to flesh out their own thinking and to suggest references for their employees to read to get on the same page with them.

Open & Outsourced Innovation - Major Areas Of Activity

We will then cull down the infinite number of permutations of Outsourcing and/or Open Innovation into a fairly finite set of things that companies are doing that are "open" in nature.

Specific terminology is helpful in navigating the tangible and actionable aspects of open innovation. For example, "alliances for co-development" versus "in-licensing or out-licensing" of a technology are separable subjects with different financial considerations and resource needs.

Having covered innovation vs. invention vs. intellectual property in the first two days of the Summit, participants will be ready for this discussion as all three parts of the continuum come into play differently depending on the type of Open/Outsourced activity.

Open & Outsourced Innovation - Industry Trends

Industry research is starting to capture emerging trends and percentages of companies that are doing this or that technique. Some patterns are starting to emerge.

Management science, much like the singles marketplace that does matches between individuals, is starting to profile the types of companies that make good matches along with the types of reasons that make for a good match. Open Innovation is still in its nascent stages, but the management science is growing.