VOIS - Area 1 - Module 2

  1. MODULE TITLE

Module 2: Main pillars of open innovation strategy
  1. AUTHORS

Ewa Kopczynska
  1. SHORT DESCRIPTION

To benefit from Open Innovation, your company will need an effective strategy accounting for your organisational vision and resource limitations. In this module, you will learn about the key elements of an Open Innovation strategy, such as creating a clear vision of Open Innovation strategy and activities and how to identify needs for external resources in the scope of innovation process. Going through the module, always keep your specific SME in mind to relate the contents to your specific context.
  1. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

    Upon completing this module, you should be able to:

  • Better understand the innovation process and the application of Open Innovation for overcoming shortages in your internal resources and capabilities,
  • Consider different types of innovation for possible application in the scope of your strategy,
  • Design a strategy accounting for a specific vision of your company,
  • Understand the initial steps of your Open Innovation strategy development and what other aspects should be considered afterwards.
  1. Training Content
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How Open Innovation can effectively support innovation in my SME

SMEs due to their size usually are not able to cover all activities required to innovate. Hence successful innovation usually requires the engagement of external partners. Look at the phases of innovation process (see figure below). Does your organization have what it takes to cover all the activities across the different phases? Look at each of the phases separately – and for each of the phases think:

  1. What resources do we have that will be useful at this stage?
  2. What resources are we lacking?
  3. Which resources we should acquire internally, e.g., hire a new employee to provide us with the missing knowledge, train current staff or purchase required equipment?
  4. Which resources are too expensive or too time-consuming to develop/acquire?

Make detailed notes for each of the phases to map the resources that you can muster and those that you will need to reach out for outside of your company.

Note. At the stage of strategy development, you will look at the innovation process in general terms. But such analysis should be included in each innovation project to ensure that your company will not fall short on resources along the project development and implementation.

In next modules, you will learn how to identify and involve the partners you need, but try to think about what kind of expertise, technologies, and resources you wish to acquire within partnerships to supplement shortages in your resources across the stages of an innovation process.

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