Open Innovation

I have just read an interesting article in Science Business which talks about Open Innovation.  At Longbow we have been long talking about open innovation, and how it is changing the way all companies do business.  In fact, this is one of the reasons that Longbow has chosen to invest in life sciences.  It is one of the first industries to embrace it.

Longbow is a founding partner in the Boots Centre for Innovation, a novel approach, in that it is a retailer and not a (primarily) product company that is putting such structures in place.  Boots recognises its power as a strong launch partner for novel products and technologies and is prepared to puts its weight behind getting these to market. 

However, as the report points out, most organisations have a long way to go before they are close to making this systemic within the organisation.  It says:

"Open innovation requires skills such as relationship building, negotiating and the ability to pioneer novel legal arrangements. Despite this, training in open innovation is not prevalent. Some respondents believe the only way to learn about open innovation is on the job, while others suggest that formal training is an important part of its acceptance and its success."

Our experience with Boots is similar, but I think that I would place a different emphasis.  Of course training is important, but unless the company reward system takes open innovation into account, people will not change their behaviour.  Leadership is important, but for all staff levels to take it seriously, it has to hit their wallet.  Unless open innovations is linked to bonuses/promotion, any attempt to implement it will falter - as it frequently does.