EP3: Tools for Open Innovation
Transcript:
As
promised, we will put theory into practice. Today we will be talking about the
paper “The
role of digital technologies in open innovation processes: an exploratory
multiple case study analysis” by Andrea Urbinati, Davide
Chiaroni, Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini from 2018. The overall
question: What does a company need to do, in order to implement
digital technologies in an Open Innovation process?
The Tools
Big Data
Huge
amount of data, that can’t be handled with in a “normal” way. The correct
amount of bytes depends on the size of the company. In order to
handle big data, one needs analytical skills to extract value from this massive
amount of data.
Internet
of Things (IoT)
It’s the
technology to connect “things” via internet. Smart homes and wearables are real
life examples, because they exchange data via the internet from one object to
another.
Information
and Knowledge Management systems (IKM)
Creating,
sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization.
(e.g. eLearning platforms like "Moodle")
Cloud
Computing
The
Cloud! To put it as simple as possible: it’s an IT-Infrastructure made
available via internet. Normally it includes data capacities, computing power
or an application software (e.g. adobe programms, that also save your projects in
their cloud).
Product-Lifecycle-Management
– Systems
Systems
that withhold all the information and data regarding the life cycle of a
product - from the concept to the trash bin/ recycling bin. With these systems
one can also control the process of development and enable the redistribution
of workflows. Also crossfunctional teams can use these systems: One might be good in
CAD programs to do the mock up, the other one is an engineer and realises the
product and then there are administrators and such that do the distribution.
All these steps can be included in one PLM - System.
System of
Rapid Prototyping (SoRP)
SoRP (e.g. 3D printing technology), mainly revolves around prototype generation, test
design, refining and commercializing. Its most beneficial in the product
development phase, you can e.g. simultaneously develop several versions of the
same product and speed up the product offering.
Combining
the Tools
In order
to understand the significance of the different tools, you must understand,
that combined and used simultaneously, they give the organization additional
advantages in the Open Innovation process. For example, a proper Cloud
infrastructure must be installed in order to deal with Big Data. That means you
need good working computers and lots of storage to even benefit from other digital technologies.
Two other
tools working well together when it comes to product development is the System
of Rapid Prototyping and Product lifecycle systems, because SoRP enables saving
time on prototyping and PLM provides control over the product
lifecycle of said product.
How to
use them?
On the
organizational level it helps in reorganizing the Research and Development
units in data capacities and time management for example. They need to
restructure their way of financing digital investment, implement routine ways
for innovation activities and standardize technologies’ features.
But let’s
move on to the process of Open Innovation: There are three phases, that a
company has go through to enable Open Innovation. I will include a little
example just to make it more approachable: The generating of an idea, let’s say
a nurse droid, the development of the droid and the last phase would be the
commercialization of it, so bringing it to the people and the hospitals.
The
mentioned tools now need to be used tailored to the phase you find yourself in.
Examples
More and
more private hospitals invest in digital technology to monitor the patient’s
diagnostic-therapeutic pathway via electronic medical records. A hospital put
together a group of 20 to 25 people including doctors and nurses. This so
called task force was supposed to work with new digital tools to accelerate the
elaboration of information on their patients instead of using the traditional
clinical records on paper. In detail, they used Big Data and Cloud computing,
where they saved and analysed the information of their clients. In the end they
reduced the time on elaborating clinical records from three to four weeks to
four days from the patients’ discharge. On the OI process, let’s say
“timeline”, the technologies where used within the commercialisation phase, so
they where already using it on customers, their patients.
The
second example is of a company that tries to establish a unit called “Digital
Direction – unit” that responds directly to the CEO. Before this unit they used
site management, apps, social media etc., which helped different units to
communicate. First they planned to make a unit, that reorganized and put
together all these different platforms linked to digital technologies. In this
idea generating phase they mainly used Information and Knowledge Management
systems. By initiating this unit the company was following two main goals: They
wanted to digitalize the marketing and commercialization in order to get to
their final customers and they wanted to put the digitalization of sales
processes in the hands of sales. The next step, to achieve these goals, was to
overcome the technological and digital gap. We now arrived at the development
phase, where they integrated graduate programs for internal offices and
employees and of course digital training courses. Because the implementation of
digital technologies and the initiatives require experts in the field, they
need to be found as well.
The
technological transformation of the past years actually forces the companies to
adapt their research and development units. They now have to adapt their
innovation activities. In particular they do so by standardizing technologies’
features, to rethink their planned budget for digital investments and, as we
already reflected on, developing new and formalized procedures for innovation
activities.
Summary
To
summarize the findings of Andrea Urbinati et al. there are certain
steps a company needs to go through to enable Open Innovation and to really use
it to their advantage. For optimization of your digital processes, it is
advisable to form a unit that will be combining the different tools tailored to
the organizations needs, and where it stands in the OI Process (whether it is
on the stage of idea creating, developing or commercializing). After these
things are sorted out, the optimized tools can be implemented in the different
departments, which need to work with these tools again. To involve the
employees in this transformation process will require workshops and some time.
But as the case studies showed, it will be worth it, because in the end it will
safe costs and time and employees will be technological wise be picked up
appropriately.
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