We are seeing lots of open innovation progress and companies are keen to share success-stories. We do not hear much about the failures, but here you get three examples.
Boeing 787 Dreamliner:
I think it is now fair to say that Boeing has a solid failure at hands when it comes to the building (and innovation) process of the otherwise great aircraft (well, once they fix the safety issues that is).
Just consider this quote from Boeing: “More than 50 of the world’s most capable top-tier supplier partners are working with Boeing to bring innovation and expertise to the 787 program. The suppliers have been involved since the early detailed design phase of the program and all are connected virtually at 135 sites around the world.”
Given their many delays and now the safety issues, I think the conclusion is clear. They failed.
LEGO Universe:
I really like how LEGO embraces open innovation in general, but they also had an early failure with their LEGO Universe project, which you can read about in this post.
The pharma industry:
As it might be unfair to mention LEGO above, it might be a bit premature to include the pharma industry here. The reason for doing so is that they have not yet succeded in finding a way to change their blockbuster approach and their best bet sofar has been the open innovation-like approach with biotech companies. The pharma industry still needs to convince me that they can beyond buying projects and actually set up an open innovation process.
It is actually hard to find specific cases on open innovation failures. Can you help?
A good example of a pioneering, open innovation program in pharmaceuticals is what Pfizer is doing with their Centers for Therapeutic Innovation program – http://www.pfizer.com/research/rd_works/centers_for_therapeutic_innovation.jsp.
In summary, they are working with select Academic Medical Centers as part of a strategic alliance program designed to accelerate drug discovery and development.
Bernie
Director Life Sciences At Imaginatik