The power of open minds: how open innovation offers benefits for all

In our latest Capgemini Research Institute report, The power of open minds: How open innovation offers benefits for all, we look at the concept of “open innovation” in depth and evaluate its relevance to businesses today.

Open innovation, the practice of collaborating with external entities to co-create new value, has become essential to business success. As organizations face a slew of challenges ahead of them, especially the issue of sustainability, they will need to harness the potential of open innovation to shorten organizational response time and capitalize on future opportunities.

Illustrating this fact are the responses from our survey of 1,000 large organizations; 75% said that open innovation is critical to addressing complex business issues, and 71% plan to increase their investment in open innovation over the next two years. Organizations are adopting a variety of approaches to open innovation, including corporate accelerators and incubators, corporate venture capital, venture clienting, venture building, crowdsourcing, and open innovation labs. New York, London, and Paris emerged as the top three cities for planned investments in open innovation labs in the next two years.

Open innovation is delivering a wide range of benefits: 55% of organizations say that it has led to increased speed of innovation, while 62% say it has led to greater employee agility and adaptability. Over 60% have also realized financial benefits such as increased revenue and operational efficiency. Open innovation is also helping organizations address their sustainability goals, with 63% citing improvements in environmental sustainability indicators as a result of their open innovation initiatives.

However, organizations have been unable to tap into the full potential of open innovation – just over half of the organizations we surveyed rate their open innovation outcomes as “above average” or better, and only 22% described their outcomes as “good” or “excellent”. Our research also shows that organizations are not committing themselves adequately to open innovation, still preferring to work with more traditional partners, such as customers and suppliers, rather than exploring new sources of innovation.

We explore in our report what characteristics set apart the organizations that derive better outcomes from open innovation. We also look at how organizations can increase the effectiveness of their open innovation initiatives. Enhancing the outcomes of open innovation requires establishing the right foundation for open innovation success as well as implementing specific actions to further increase the effectiveness of open innovation initiatives.

Download the report to learn more about open innovation, why it is critical for organizations, and how it can be employed successfully.