While the term “open innovation” may be new to some, it has been around for a decade (or maybe even a century). Simply put, open innovation is about sourcing new ideas and concepts from outside the organization to help develop new innovative, creative and money-making ideas for the company.
There are about 50% of companies across the value chain that still are not participating in open innovation, according to a PTIS benchmarking study we conducted last year. Many of the companies that do practice it are still struggling for a number of reasons. The first reason is that companies have not developed simple and equitable ways to deal with and reward technology providers or inventors. The second issue is that many internal leaders feel threatened by outside ideas. You might know this as NIH (not invented here) syndrome. The third issue is that many organizations have not developed simple open innovation processes. Some have overcomplicated processes which inventors can’t get through, and others have no process to funnel ideas.