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APQC to Release Open Innovation Report [Professional Services Close - Up]
[August 24, 2013]

APQC to Release Open Innovation Report [Professional Services Close - Up]


(Professional Services Close - Up Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) APQC, a provider of benchmarking and best practices research, has released a new report-Open Innovation: Enhancing Idea Generation Through Collaboration.

According to a release, the study, which was conducted in partnership with Project Management Institute, identified 11 open innovation best practices across four areas-strategies, roles, processes, and measurement/improvement.

In the study, APQC and PMI named five global best-practice organizations with multiple years of experience implementing open innovation practices: Amway, British Telecom, Cisco Systems, Inc., Corning Inc., and General Mills.

The top three best practices include: -Establishing a central and dedicated group to drive open innovation.

Seventy-five percent of the best-practice organizations in APQC's study have a central group of staff members specifically dedicated to open innovation, which is 35 percent higher than other study participants. Despite the size of the best-practice organizations (median annual revenue of $17 billion), their open innovation groups are kept small. Two-thirds have 25 or fewer employees in their open innovation groups, and one-third have 26 to 50 employees. Small, dedicated open groups establish ownership of the process and create an ability to execute an agile strategy.



-Partnering broadly across a variety of external and internal organizations.

Specifically, best-practice organizations offer showcases to give customers and other partners first-hand experience with new and potential products and services.


The eight additional best practices are: 1. Focus on targeted, needs-based open innovation.

2. Position your organization to build and manage key relationships.

3. Allow open innovation maturity to drive the approach to intellectual property ownership.

4. Seek open innovation team members with specialized skills and backgrounds.

5. Integrate and align the open innovation process with other relevant processes to ensure key entities are involved at critical points.

6. Embrace broad and specific scouting for new ideas.

7. Seek compelling measures for open innovation.

8. Use change management to drive commitment to open innovation.

Additional subject matter expertise for the study was provided by Matthew Heim of inno360 and Christopher Miller of Innovation Focus.

"In this research, we saw that open innovation yields access to connections and organizations often not previously considered," said Marisa Brown, director, Research Services, APQC. "Open innovation helps organizations leverage technologies, processes, and cost structures from their partners. We are excited to share these best practices and insights through this report." Stephen Townsend, director, Global Alliances and Networks, PMI, said, "The need for innovation is well-documented. According to our research at PMI, organizations need to be much faster at responding to strategic opportunities and have shorter decision or production review cycles. However, the key to truly successful innovation lies in implementation. Successful organizations maintain a closer link between strategy and implementation, enabling innovative companies to translate their findings into results.

"Project Management Institute is dedicated to helping organizations improve their execution performance so they are better able to leverage their innovation activities to drive business results. As a partner with APQC on this important study, we have an excellent opportunity to provide useful insights, approaches, and knowledge for practitioners seeking to change the world through innovation." Detailed descriptions of the 11 best practices, supported by case studies from the best-practice organizations, may be found at Open Innovation: Enhancing Idea Generation Through Collaboration - Report Overview.

((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) (c) 2013 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved.

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