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Module 7: Building your Open Innovation ecosystem |
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Evangelia Chatzikonstantinou, Panagiotis Kallianis, Stylianos Portokalidis, Maria Symeonidou |
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Open Innovation Ecosystem Managing to build an Open Innovation ecosystem, is certainly an important opportunity for SMEs in the agri-food sector to extend their value as businesses. The Open Innovation strategy will help them on this process via many ways. Following this strategy means that it will assist in developing IT skills and improving the digitalization of a business by using the opportunities given from Open Data and Big Data. Apart from that, the most important aspect to be prioritized is Networking Development. Through networking, one can extend their collaborations, exchange innovative ideas with other SMEs and co-operate with public actors, such as chambers, municipalities, universities etc. Furthermore, Open Innovation strategy will assist in selecting the appropriate partners for entering wider markets and being more competitive, by doing strategic choices for every issue and by taking advantage of every opportunity given. |
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Upon completing this module, you should be able to: |
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Open Data ecosystem in Open Innovation
According to the above, Open Innovation is one of the fundamental ways to reach better and faster creative solutions and facilitate problem-solving through the open flow of ideas and cooperation’s issues inside and outside the organization’s environment. For this reason, Big Data and Open Data analysis represent a very important technological opportunity to promote and sustain the benefits from Open Innovation. Business opportunities created by Big Data and Open Data can be helpful to the firms who wish to share knowledge and to redefine relationships between companies. It is the ‘’intimate nature’’ of these Data and the information gleaned from them that give rise to the most valuable opportunities.[7]
Referring to the Open Innovation 2.0 strategy in Big Data, a disciplined practice is required by many companies and organizations rather than a few companies who have mastered it. For this reason, EU’s research commissioner Carlos Moedas (November 2014- November 2019), proposed for fostering investment to develop a policy throughout the European Union, to implement an Open Innovation 2.0 strategy roadmap which would promote private-public partnerships and sustain innovation. (European Commission, 2016).[8]
Open Data could be identified as a data that should be available to anyone with the possibility of redistribution without any copyright limitation. This openness by businesses can increase their ability for innovation applications. Today, new start-ups use new technologies for new business models creation and for profitability and competitiveness promotion. Data is also useful for businesses because it could be used as an input in Information Systems and then businesses can produce new products or services and support the development of them. [9]
Open Data should be available to users without any sensitive information included. Furthermore, data should be easily accessible. Data can be downloaded using an Application Programming Interface (API), that creates a communication channel between the user, the machine and the database which includes data and facilitates their upload. However, there are some obstacles and challenges when using Open Data. These obstacles may relate to availability and accessibility features, findability, usability, understandability, quality, linking and combining data, comparability and compatibility, technical issues, privacy restrictions and law.
In general, opening data is a big change for business. The main obstacles in this change are the lack of knowledge on the opportunities given from Open Data, the lack of business models and the lack of operation models. These obstacles explain why businesses are not currently motivated to open their own data. For this reason, it is crucial that users, business managers and owners should be educated on this subject in order to increase their experience regarding the use of Open Data and to expand their capabilities of using these techniques, while governments should support the use of Open Data at the same time.[10]
According to Open Data, the Business Model Canvas is very popular. This kind of business model provides a formal template for creating new business models. It describes how a company offers value to one or more segments of customers, the structure of the business and its network of partners for creating and delivering this value to gain revenue streams and to increase profitability. Main elements included in this model are:
- key partners (the network of suppliers and partners with whom the business collaborate to make the business model work),
- key activities (the most important things the business is obliged to do to make its business model work),
- value proposition (products and services which create value for a specific customer segment),
- customer relationships (the different types of relationships business have with customer groups),
- customer segments (the groups of people of organizations who are customers of this business, and it wishes to reach and serve),
- key resources (the resources which are necessary to make the business model work),
- channels (the ways that the company communicates with and reaches its customers to deliver a value proposition),
- cost structure (costs), and
- revenues (revenues which a business earns from each customer group).
Businesses, intermediaries, and infrastructure providers should be part of this business ecosystem because they could support new applications and the creation of several start-ups. More actors may be included but they are difficult to be identified due to the limited awareness and knowledge new businessmen about the benefits of Open Data. So, it is important to educate business managers about Open Data. Except from this, the cooperation between actors will be secured through contracts.
In addition, the role of the public sector is necessary as a means of communication in order to publish data. Cooperation with universities, laboratories, research institutes is essential when trying to provide more data to start ups and increase their opportunities for their applications to be accepted. Their role could be both supportive and technical because they can support them with the commercialization of their applications and provide technical tools to improve them.
In general, the Open Data ecosystem contributes to the understanding of what could or should be done among partnerships. Furthermore, it is helpful for gaining new partners and new customers and supports a business to serve its customers better. The size of the ecosystem is of great matter. The bigger it gets, the easier it will be to find partners to participate. As the ecosystem is getting larger, then it will be more interesting to application developers.[11]
