6 Collaborative Open Innovation Websites

In this article, we will showcase companies who have integrated this strategy for fostering open innovation and discuss why it might be the right strategy for you.

How can your company externally promote open innovation? This depends on many factors, including your company’s culture and structure. However, one popular implementation strategy is through dedicated collaborative open innovation websites.

In this article, we will showcase companies who have integrated this strategy for fostering open innovation and discuss why it might be the right strategy for you.

Société Générale: Win-win Approach to Fintech Innovation

Société Générale is looking to work with ambitious startups who develop disruptive technologies. For this reason, they launched a platform for their open innovation efforts. The platform showcases different ways to collaborate with Société Générale – Société Générale Ventures, Global Markets Incubator, Internal Startup Call, and others.

It has two main objectives: offer Société Générale’s expertise to Fintech startups while benefiting from the startups’ technology and methods.

Claire Calmejane, Chief Innovation Officer at Société Générale, illustrates how the bank works with startups:

Our new strategy is based on 3 pillars, in line with the Transform to Grow plan: strengthen relationships with startups, support the business lines’ digital strategies, and create new business models. 

The new strategy has been effective, Société Générale ranks as the 26th most innovative company in France, according to Forbes.

General Electric: Linking Collaborators

General Electric’s platform, GENIUSLINK, has a different spin on open innovation. The American conglomerate created a community-oriented open innovation website where innovators can gather to crowdsource resources, expertise, and solutions for General Electric’s (GE) “challenges”. Currently, GE has 22 challenges, ranging from aviation to health.

The platform connects innovators and experts with GE’s own business and technical experts to get “business done” as GE proudly says. Through the platform, GENIUSLINK offers a range of services linked to product development.

The platform’s key differentiator is the size of its community – in the millions, and its speed to market when putting chosen technologies into production.

Procter & Gamble: A No Secrets Strategy to Open Innovation

Procter & Gamble (P&G) launched Connect and Develop, with the hopes of finding solutions to P&G’s most important innovation needs. These range from Oral, Personal and Family Care Innovations to Digital, Business and Retail Innovations. Today, there are 17 areas of “needs”. An interesting comparison between P&G’s approach and others is its detailed and open approach to addressing corporate challenges.

Potential partners immediately discover what the company is looking for – saving everyone time. This transparency makes the whole innovation process that much more beneficial for P&G and its innovation ecosystem.

Don’t take our word for it – Connect and Develop has brought to life an impressive line of products, such as the Swiffer Dusters, the Crest SpinBrush, and the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

Philips: SPICE-ing up Open Innovation

Philips’ SPICE platform engages in the “outside-in” form of open innovation, meaning it draws information, technologies, and expertise from outside its four walls to solve its innovation challenges.

The platform connects innovators and their solutions with a range of Philips’ business categories and teams. Innovators can propose their solutions to Philips and voting takes place on the platform. The most popular solutions are invited to interact with the appropriate business category and continue along the process all the way to adoption.

In contrast to GE’s platform, Philips is mostly looking for solutions that are ready for implementation, the platform doesn’t offer product development assistance.

Ikea: Co-creating Tomorrow’s Home

Another example of an open innovation platform is Ikea’s Co-create. The platform has three pillars – Exploring life at home, Ideas and Prototypes, and Voting and Feedback. At each stage, Ikea encourages customers to participate.

All their projects start with asking customers a specific question – for instance, what are your living room storage needs? This is followed by a research phase, where customer insight is collected and taken into consideration. Only after this phase does Ikea build a prototype.

Customer participation doesn’t stop there, Ikea continues to ask for feedback during the testing phase. This is a great example of open innovation centered around customer insights.

When Ikea needs new technologies they also turn to open innovation. Ikea Bootcamp connects the company with leading startups, such as Adlede, Beam Impact, and Bumblebee Spaces.

Samsung: Supercharging Innovation

Samsung Next, the company’s flagship open innovation platform, works with startups in various capacities to increase innovation. The platform is divided into three areas: Partnerships, Ventures, and Mergers & Acquisitions. In each area, Next is helping its partners to grow and innovate, while at the same time adding to Samsung’s ever-growing software and services portfolio.

A key take away from the Next program, is its mission to connect its existing Next partners to foster even more open innovation. This strategy assures that Samsung achieves the highest RIO possible from investing in open innovation.

Why are websites a good medium?

Collaborative open innovation websites are a popular way to democratize innovation as they focus and centralize your efforts, provide wide visibility to your innovation needs, and are cost-effective.

In the spirit of open innovation, websites are borderless and unbiased. Allowing innovation to be open, fair, and opportunistic. The websites’ sole purpose is to promote open innovation.

So, what are you waiting for?