I was recently asked for examples on high-tech companies that practice open innovation. It is a good question as we most often see open innovation examples among low-tech and fast-moving-consumer-good companies.
Nevertheless, open innovation is relevant for all industries and we are starting to see high-tech and b2b companies with open innovation-like initiatives that are visible to the public eye. Some examples:
Psion – www.ingenuityworking.com
Medtronic – www.medtronic.com/innovation/
Cisco – www.cisco.com/web/solutions/iprize/index.html
DSM – http://www.dsm.com/en_US/html/dlc/home_dlc.htm
HP – www.hpl.hp.com/open_innovation/
SAP – http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/coil
Shell (GameChanger) – www.shell.com/home/content/innovation/
Xerox – http://open.xerox.com/
Weyerhaeuser – www.growingideas.com/#/innovation/
Intuit – www.intuitcollaboratory.com
It is important to notice that many of these companies have other open innovation-like initiatives besides these public sites. Actually, it seems as if having such websites (which I refer to as destination or point-of-entry sites) are good indicators of open innovation awareness although often still in the early stages.
I also find it interesting that many high-tech and b2b companies in general have open innovation-like initiatives, but they prefer to lay low on this rather than telling the world about it and thus attract more and better partners. The main reason for this seems to be a culture that is still driven by secrecy and internal focus. Hopefully, this is about to change.
What reflections do you have on this? Which other high-tech or b2b initiatives can you share with us?
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