Evaluation of Open Innovation in B2B from a Company Culture Perspective

1. Methods

1.1. BILATERAL INNOVATION WORKSHOP Process that is beneficial for both partners. It's very successful if used for information exchange between the members of a supply chain.

1.2. INNOVATION JOURNEY Methodology that guides the innovation process in companies starting with the description of the company's internal preparation and ending with business opportunities.

1.3. LEAD USER WORKSHOP Helps to identify needs and find market orientated solutions through the combination of talents from the right participants.

1.3.1. 1st phrase: definition of the target market and goals of the method.

1.3.2. 2nd phrase: identification of the needs and trends in the market.

1.3.3. 3rd phrase: search and identification of lead users.

1.3.4. 4th phrase: development of concept design.

1.4. CROSS INDUSTRY WORKSHOP Works best when integrating at least three different parties originating from various industry sectors and which intentionally have no or very limited overlap between their business. The ideas generated do not have to lead to a relationship between the partners, but instead each partner can make use of ideas and key learnings for their own benefit.

1.5. IDEA CONTEST Online method for a certain period of time, usually restricted to one specific topic. The task to be worked on can differ from textual descriptions to prototypes or even fully functional solutions and usually a reward is offered to the winner at the end of the contest. Idea contests are often the invitation to externals to answer specific questions or do tasks in a certain way.

2. Innovation culture

2.1. Types of innovators

2.1.1. - PROACTIVE INNOVATORS: the pioneers for further development.

2.1.2. - STRATEGIC INNOVATORS: strong leadership and thus innovation is seen as top down approach.

2.1.3. - INNOVATIVE OPTIMIZERS: focus on incremental innovation.

2.1.4. - OPERATIVE INNOVATORS: focus on core operational business and processes.

2.2. The presence of a permeable innovation funnel in two directions:

2.2.1. OUTSIDE-IN: Ideas from outside have to be identified and then to be filtered and integrated into the organization’s R&D funnel.

2.2.2. INSIDE-OUT: Transfer that means a change in the conventional pathways of the company and requires the need to think out of the box. New opportunities can be harvest by entering new applications or markets.

3. Motivation and Topic Search

3.1. Motivation is the right attitude and intrinsic passion for internal champion triggering and pushing the open innovation approach.

3.2. Finding the right topics and the best matching external partners is the key to using open innovation methods efficiently.

3.3. There are 3 approaches to identify the optimum topic.

3.3.1. FROM MEGA-TRENDS TO SEARCH FIELD How will the mega-trends influence the availability of raw materials, the production process, the legal boundary conditions or the markets served. All the requirements are meant to be matched with the current or desired competences to find the optimum starting points for a search field.

3.3.2. MICRO-TREND CLUSTERING FOR INSPIRATION Offering data-bases of trends in research or industry regarding products, processes, business models or other issues. Clustering the attractive micro-trends will allow getting a more independent and secure view on how stable or important certain trends will be.

3.3.3. TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT DRIVEN Looking at the last developments and the markets behind them. This method will most likely stay closer to the existing business than the other methods, but on the other hand, the effort to get a starting point is far lower and also the search for the right partners will be a lot easier as major players are already known and also existing customers can be chosen.