University of Pisa Department of Energy, Systems, Territory and Construction Engineering
PhD Dissertation
Implementing Open Innovation: the Conceptual Design
of an Integrated ICT Platform in Leonardo’s Defence
Systems Division
Giulia Farina
March 2018
Supervisors: Prof.ssa Luisa Pellegrini Prof. Davide Aloini
Implementing Open Innovation: the Conceptual Design of an Integrated ICT Platform in Leonardo’s Defence Systems Division
Giulia Farina, 2018
Supervisors:
Prof.ssa Luisa Pellegrini University of Pisa, Dept. of Energy, Systems, Territory and Construction Engineering Prof. Davide Aloini University of Pisa, Dept. of Energy, Systems,
Territory and Construction Engineering
Revised by:
Ing. Michele Grimaldi Researcher at University of Cassino and Lazio Meridionale, Italy
Prof. Lars Bengtsson University of Gävle
Department of Energy, Systems, Territory and Construction Engineering University of Pisa
Largo Lucio Lazzarino, 1 56122 Pisa, Italy
Reference to this publication should be written as:
Farina, G. (2018). Implementing Open Innovation: the Conceptual Design of an Integrated ICT Platform in Leonardo‟s Defence Systems Division. PhD Dissertation, University of Pisa. ISBN xxx-xxx-xxx. doi: nn/xxx
ABSTRACT
Theoretical background and purpose: Implementing inbound OI implies the definition of a
set of variables: the “who”, the “when” and the “how” issues. As regards the “how”, little attention has still been devoted to the set of tools firms can use to support the implementation of the inbound OI process and, hence, to how firms can create a positive environment that encourages people at leveraging existing technological capabilities outside the boundaries of the organization or at capturing and benefiting from external sources of knowledge to enhance current technological developments. Within the “how” issue, ICT has much to contribute, in fact, it can foster activities, such as for instance communication among different actors, cooperation, and knowledge sharing and creation. The empirical evidence shows that ICT platforms have exponentially grown during the last years, but the existing platforms support only specific OI phases or sub-processes, and not the process in its own entirety. Furthermore, the scientific debate, although recognizing that ICTs can enable the entire inbound process, has rather disregarded the way firms can support the whole inbound Open Innovation process by means of ICTs. In order to fill this gap, the objective of this work thesis is to develop the conceptual design of an ICT platform supporting the inbound Open Innovation processes within the Technological Developments business unit of Leonardo Defence Systems division.
Methodology: After the preliminary phase of the conceptual design of the platform, concerning
the context analysis, methodology includes three main steps: (i) conceptualization of platform‟s functions; (ii) platform‟s preliminary design; and (iii) conceptual design of the platform‟s architecture. In each of these phases, I tried to merge evidence from the scientific literature with empirical insight emerging from the field. The Leonardo Defence Systems case study proved to be the most important approach, in order to carry out the conceptual design of ICT platform. Once the conceptual design of the platform was carried out, I tested the IF-TOPSIS technique for two of the key activities of the company: Technology Assessment and Partners‟ selection.
Findings: Results report the integrated inbound OI ICT platform‟s conceptual design. It
includes the conceptualization of the platform‟s main functions, the preliminary design deriving from use cases identified and represented by means of UML language, and the proposal for the overall system architecture and data model.
Research limitations: The research focuses only on the conceptual design phase, at this stage
the platform has not been still implemented or tested. Also, generalizability concerns may arise from the single-application context.
Practical implications: The out coming conceptual design can be useful for firms that open
their boundaries to external partners, as well as for software developers which could draw on it. Firms approaching similar OI challenges can re-contextualize the platforms to their own setting.
Originality: Originality of this research relies on the attempt to show how ICT can support
firms in their OI processes and, secondly, to support firms aiming to create a positive environment that encourages people at leveraging existing external technological opportunities
and sources of knowledge. In so doing, a systematic design approach to the definition of the conceptual proposal is also pursued.
ABSTRACT
Background teorico e obiettivo: l‟implementazione del processo di inbound Open Innovation
(OI) comporta la definizione di un set di variabili: “chi”, “quando” e “come”. Riguardo il “come”, è stata prestata poca attenzione su quali possano essere i tool utili alle aziende, al fine di implementare il processo di OI, e al fine di creare un ambiente che incoraggi le persone a far leva sulle capacità, le competenze tecnologiche e il know-how esistenti al di fuori dell‟azienda con lo scopo di favorire gli sviluppi tecnologici. Riguardo il “come”, l‟ICT può favorire molto attività quali la comunicazione tra differenti attori, la cooperazione, la creazione e la condivisione di conoscenza. L‟evidenza empirica mostra che le piattaforme ICT sono cresciute esponenzialmente negli ultimi anni, ma allo stesso tempo, le piattaforme esistenti supportano soltanto alcune specifiche fasi o sotto-processi del processo di OI. Inoltre, il dibattito scientifico, nonostante riconosca le tecnologie informatiche come fattori abilitanti dell‟intero processo di inbound OI, ha trascurato come le aziende possano essere supportate dalle stesse. Per colmare questo gap, l‟obiettivo di questo lavoro di tesi è di sviluppare la progettazione concettuale di una piattaforma ICT a supporto del processo di inbound OI all‟interno della business unit Sviluppi Tecnologici della divisione Sistemi di Difesa di Leonardo.
Metodologia: Dopo una fase preliminare alla progettazione concettuale della piattaforma,
consistita nell‟analisi del contesto, la metodologia ha incluso tre step principali: (i) concettualizzazione delle funzioni della piattaforma; (ii) preliminary design della piattaforma; (iii) progettazione concettuale dell‟architettura della piattaforma. In ognuna di queste fasi, ho considerato sia evidenze empiriche sia studi sceintifici relativi al campo in esame. Il caso di studio Leonardo Sistemi di Difesa si è rivelato l‟approccio fondamentale al fine di sviluppare la progettazione concettuale della piattaforma ICT. Una volta ultimata la progettazione concettuale della piattaforma, ho testato la tecnica IF-TOPSIS per due delle attività chiave dell‟azienda: Technology Assessment e Selezione dei partner.
Risultati: I risultati riportano la progettazione concettuale della piattaforma integrata a supporto
del processo di inbound OI. In particolare sono riportati la concettualizzazione delle funzioni della piattaforma, il preliminary design della stessa, derivante dall‟identificazione di casi d‟uso e dalla rappresentazione degli stessi tramite il linguaggio UML, e infine la proposta dell‟intera architettura di sistema e il modello dati.
Limiti della ricerca: La ricerca è focalizzata soltanto sulla fase di conceptual design, e quindi
in questo stadio la piattaforma non è stata effettivamente implementata e testata. Inoltre, problemi di generalizzabilità potrebbero derivare dalla singola applicazione a Leonardo Sistemi di Difesa..
Implicazioni pratiche: La progettazione concettuale della piattaforma può essere utile alle
aziende che intendono aprire i propri confini a partner esterni, ma può anche essere utile a sviluppatori software che potrebbero prenderne spunto. Inoltre, altre aziende con intenti simili a quelli di Loenardo Sistemi di Difesa potrebbero ricontestualizzare la piattaforma tenendo conto delle loro esigenze e peculiarità.
Originalità: L‟originalità di questa ricerca risiede nel tentativo di mostrare come l‟ICT può
supportare le aziende nei loro stessi processi di OI, e nel tentativo di supportare le aziende al fine di creare un ambiente favorevole e propenso allo sfruttamento delle opportunità tecnologiche e del know-how esistenti al di fuori dei loro confini. Pe fare questi tentativi ho sviluppato un approccio di sviluppo sistematico per la definizione del concept della piattaforma.
Parole Chiave: ICT platform; inbound Open Innovation; Conceptual design
Index
1. Introduction………... 1
2. Theoretical Background and Research Objective……….. 3
2.1 Inbound Open Innovation Overview………... 6
2.2 Inbound Open Innovation phases and ICT tools supporting them………... 10
2.3 Inbound Open Innovation sub-phases……… 14
2.4 Overview of existing ICT Open Innovation Platforms…………. 20
2.5 Research Objective……… 28
3. Research Design and Methodology……….. 33
3.1 Research Methodology and Project Scope………... 33
3.2 The Leonardo Defence System Division Case Study……….. 37
3.3 Platform’s Conceptual Design phases……… 38
3.3.1 Conceptualization of the Platform’s Functions……... 38
3.3.2 Platform’s Preliminary Design………. 39
3.3.3 Conceptual Design of the Platform’s Architecture……. 39
4. Results and Analysis………. 41
4.1 Platform’s Conceptual Design Results and Analysis………. 41
4.1.1 The Context Analysis………. 41
4.1.2 The Conceptualization of Platform’s Functions... 51
4.1.2.1 Use Cases Description………. 56
4.1.2.2 The Overall UML Use Case Diagram……... 89
4.1.3 Platform’s Preliminary Design………. 90
4.1.4 Conceptual Design of the Platform’s Architecture... 113
4.1.4.1 Data Tables Description……….. 116
4.1.4.2 UML Class Diagram Description………... 140
4.1.4.3 The Integrated Inbound OI Platform Conceptual Design………... 151
4.2 Partners’ Selection and Technology Assessment Methods Testing………... 153
4.2.1 Structured Selection of Partners within the OI Process with IF-TOPSIS………... 154
4.2.2 Technology Assessment with IF-TOPSIS……… 172
5. Conclusions……… 201
APPENDIX A: Conceptual Design Theory………... 206
APPENDIX B: UML-Unified Modelling Language………. 211
References………. 218
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1. Introduction
Over time, Open Innovation (OI) strategy was considered a “must” for many firms operating in different sectors. Therefore, research on Open Innovation has gained incredible momentum and the scientific literature has begun to analyse OI from different perspectives, encompassing multiple and heterogeneous viewpoints, representations, theories, contexts, levels of analysis, and even research methodologies. One of the most promising perspectives proposed in the extant literature interprets OI as a macro-process (West and Bogers, 2013; Slowiski and Sagal, 2010), where three key processes (sometimes also labelled as modes) can be differentiated (Enkel et al., 2009; Gassmann and Enkel, 2004): the outside-in process, also referred to as „inbound‟ process, which consists of accessing the technical and scientific knowledge and competence from external sources in order to integrate them internally; the inside-out process, also referred to as „outbound‟ process, which involves looking for partners with a business model better suited to commercialize a technology (Chiaroni et al., 2009); and the coupled process, that consists of a balance of the two previous processes.
While focusing specifically on the inbound OI process, the literature has put in evidence that implementing OI implies the definition of a set of variables: the “who”, the “when” and the “how” issues (Aloini et al., forthcoming). The “who” issue regards the selection of partners with whom the collaboration should take place (Laursen and Salter, 2006); the “when” issue concerns the phase(s) of the innovation funnel which should be opened to the external partners (Lazzarotti and Manzini, 2009), while the “how” issue regards matters connected with the implementation of open processes, in that organizations need tools and mechanisms that allow them to fully exploit OI opportunities (Slowinski and Sagal, 2010; Chiaroni et al., 2009). As regards the “how”, little attention has still been devoted to the set of tools firms can use to support the implementation of the inbound OI process and, hence, to how firms can create a positive environment that encourages people at leveraging existing technological capabilities outside the boundaries of the organization (Hung and Chou, 2013) or at capturing and benefiting from external sources of knowledge to enhance current technological developments (Huizing, 2011). Within the “how” issue, ICT (Information and Communication Technology) has much to
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contribute because of the pivotal role of digital technologies in enabling OI initiatives. ICT, in fact, can foster activities, such as for instance communication among different actors, cooperation, and knowledge sharing and creation.
The empirical evidence shows that ICT platforms have exponentially grown during the last years (see, for example: InnoCentive, NineSigma, Yet2come.com). However, on closer view, existing platforms support only specific OI phases or sub-processes, but not the process in its own entirety. For instance, InnoCentive is a platform for collecting ideas to solve a given problem; NineSigma provides NineSights.com, an open innovation social media that connects innovators of various sizes with resources and relationships; Yet2come.com offers services such as OI consulting, technology scouting, out-licensing technology, patent transactions, but they are designed as separate services. On the other hand, the scientific debate, although recognizing that ICTs can enable the entire inbound process (Awazu et al., 2009) and although analysing the existing platforms (for a review see Tavakoli et al., 2017), has rather disregarded the way firms can support the whole inbound Open Innovation process by means of ICTs (Cui et al., 2015). Furthermore literature does not offer any contribution regarding a systematic design (specifically a conceptual design) of such an ICT platform.
Therefore, the purpose of this research project is to develop the conceptual design of an integrated ICT platform supporting all the phases of the inbound Open Innovation process. The Technological Developments business unit of Leonardo Defence Systems provides the context for the development of the platform. The research project, in fact, originates from the need of this business unit, to implement inbound OI process. The aim of the BU was to open the business to the civilian market by exploiting dual-purpose technologies (i.e. technologies for both the military and civilian markets).
The remaining part of this work thesis is structured as follows: section 2 provides the theoretical background and research objective which focuses on the identification of the phases of the OI process, and on how ICT can support them, in order to explain the project research objective; section 3 presents the research design and methodology and specifically the phases of the conceptual design; results are presented in section 4, particularly the outputs of each phase
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of the platform‟s conceptual design and the evidences from the partners‟ selection and technology assessment tested methods are here discussed; finally, conclusions are reported in the end. Furthermore the Appendix A describes in detail the conceptual design theory, and Appendix B explains the UML Language, used for the platform‟s conceptual design.
2. Theoretical Background and Research Objective
Making innovation can be considered as a process characterized three general phases: (i) exploratory studies; (ii) experimental research; (iii) commercialisation. The first phase consists of the generation, selection and evaluation of new ideas, both from the technological point of view and from the market insertion point of view. The second phase concerns the construction and development of selected ideas, while commercialisation includes aspects related to the implementation of activities aiming to the insertion in the global market (Shilling, 2009).The innovation process should aim not only to the improvement and optimisation of existing products and technologies, but it should also address the development of new technologies and skills (Faems et. al, 2005). This is due to the fact that companies should also strive to explore new fields of knowledge and technologies for the future.
Traditionally, companies carried out the innovation process internally, trying to grow and progress by exploiting the resources and technologies developed inside the enterprise boundaries. This model is called "closed innovation" and it is distinguished by the fact that the innovation process‟s activities are conducted internally. The companies‟ objective for innovation was therefore to acquire the work of the most valuable human resources, in order to get ideas to exploit and commercialise, using intellectual property protection mechanisms (IPPMs) with the aim to protect the results and to ensure the exclusivity of the innovation. According to the closed model the innovation process must therefore avoid any form of contact with the outside world in each of its phases. Over the years the limitations of the "closed innovation" model have become more evident. In fact, as Lichtenthaler (2009) states, a "closed" strategy limits
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the ability of the company to achieve the strategic benefits that could get instead using outside resources.
Henry Chesbrough, with his book "Open Innovation" (Chesbrough, 2003) is the author who first identifies a change in the enterprises innovation activities, observing an increasing level of attention to the resources developed by external partners. The term Open Innovation has been created in a socio-economic environment characterized by increasing integration between different sectors, different technologies and different products, also marked by increasingly shorter product life cycles. Innovation thus becomes a competitive necessity for market participants and the classic innovation form needs for a strong change in the approach and for distinctive features compared to traditional innovation models adopted in the past and commonly grouped together under the definition of closed innovation. The new type of innovation, called “Open Innovation”, owes its origin to Henry Chesbrough, who coins the term stating that "Open innovation is the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively”. This paradigm assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology (Chesbrough, 2003). The model of Open Innovation, conceived and theorized by Chesbrough (2003), appears to be a consequence of the evolution of the market, more and more complex, characterized by intense rhythms, by the need to combine the potential of different forms of knowledge and by the difficulty for lots of companies to exclusively benefit of their human and technological resources. In such a context it has become increasingly important the interaction with external subjects such as suppliers, customers, universities and various kinds of institutes and research centres, focusing on open approaches, collaboration and information exchange. Chesbrough (2003) also points out that the ability to enhance expertise and competencies, which are outside the company, can become the company's advantage factor, and the Research and Development from external sources can generate significant value. At the base of the increasing openness of corporates‟ boundaries, Chesbrough (2006) identifies the rise of new technology development costs and the shortening of product life cycles. The increasing costs within the development process of new technologies makes it overly expensive for the R&D activities conducted
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internally, while the reduction of the product life cycles reduces the possibility for the company to recover the investment, dues to a potential early exit of the product from the market. Through the adoption of the open innovation model it is possible to reduce development costs and time to market by combining internal and external knowledge and also to sell to third parties internally developed technologies. The Open Innovation paradigm goes beyond just utilizing external sources of innovation such as customers, rivals, and universities and it is much a change in the use, management, and employment of IP. Henkel (2006) suggests that the OI process can lead far beyond the exchange mediated by the market; in fact opening the innovation process means to make available a technology to the public in order to attract collaborations, instead of to buy or sell on the market. Companies can make their own technology available to the public, to attract collaboration." It is useful to emphasize that all subsequent definitions remain consistent with that proposed by Chesbrough (2003) and how a common feature emerges between the multiple definitions: the need for organizations to overcome business boundaries and integrate innovative solutions from external partners.
Despite the potential benefits of openness, firms have encountered difficulties in successfully carrying out OI initiatives (Huston and Sakkab, 2006; Sarker et al., 2012) because significant internal supporting resources are needed to unlock OI‟s potential (Chesbrough and Garman, 2009). As an important resource with a great penetration in the Open Innovation context, ICT provides the conditions for OI deployment (Cui et al., 2015; Dodgson et al., 2006) and indeed has been shown to positively influence the adoption of OI (Verbano et al., 2013; Chiaroni et al., 2009). For example, firms rely on online communities to actively search for potential external knowledge (Di Gangi and Wasko, 2009), and the virtual environment of knowledge transfer and integration is supported by collaborative innovation systems or communication tools (Zammuto et al., 2007). However, although these examples show how the phenomenal advances in ICT have rendered organizational boundaries so porous that knowledge can be easily transferred inward and outward (Whelan et al., 2012), limited research has theoretically modelled and empirically tested on how firms can mobilize their ICT resources to support OI (Cui et al., 2015). In the following I will review the literature regarding ICT in Open Innovation, focusing on the outside-in OI process. Specifically, I analyse the inbound OI literature to deeply
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understand the underlying processes, whose implementation is facilitated by the support of ICT tools.
2.1 Inbound Open Innovation Overview
Nowadays inbound Open Innovation is increasingly considered as a source of competitive advantage, not only in high-tech sector but also in a growing number of companies operating in other sectors; in fact enterprises, in order to stay competitive, can‟t rely exclusively on their own R&D (Chesbrough and Crowther, 2006). Chesbrough and Crowther (2006) sustain this thesis by means of a study conducted on a sample of twelve companies belonging to different sectors from high-tech sector. Their study reveals that an increasing number of organizations would use open tools to access knowledge developed by others. Deciding on the outside-in process as a company‟s core open innovation approach means that this company chooses to invest in co-operation with potential partners and to integrate the external knowledge gained (Gassman and Enkel, 2004). The outside-in process comprises earlier supplier integration, customer co-development, external knowledge sourcing and integration, in-licensing and buying patents (Gassman and Enkel, 2004). The extant literature on OI has widely investigated the issues connected with the involvement of different partners along the phases of the innovation funnel, following several perspectives of analysis: the number and typologies of involved partners (Laursen and Salter, 2006; Enkel, Gassmann and Chesbrough, 2009; Kneupp and Gassmann, 2009; Tether, 2002); the organizational form of acquisition or commercialization, operationalized in terms of level of integration and time horizon (van de Vrande et al., 2006); and the governance – whether flat or hierarchical – of the collaboration network (Pisano and Verganti, 2008). Gassmann (2006), in the attempt to analyse the applicability of the new open model to define whether it is suitable for any environment and company, identifies five key aspects that facilitate the spread of inbound Open Innovation practices, which are:
globalization, which leads to a rapid movement of innovations thanks to movable capital, advanced ICT tools and reduced communication costs and logistics;
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the degree to which innovation is the result of different knowledge and technology areas, thus determining the need for access to these different sources;
the opportunity to create new business;
the level of high technological intensity, which often makes insufficient the internally owned resources;
the level of knowledge distribution, also due to the mobility of workers and thus of the knowledge itself.
An interesting perspective related to OI is the analysis of the processes, which characterize it. Because of the severe challenges many firms face in managing inbound Open Innovation, after a first initial disinterest of the literature on the process through which firms implement open innovation (Chiaroni et al., 2009), recent work has pointed to a process-based understanding of OI in general and of inbound Open Innovation specifically, being the dominance of the outside-in process usually observed (Lichtenthatler, 2011; West and Bogers, 2013; Slowinski and Sagal, 2010; Gassman et al., 2010). Within this understanding, West and Bogers (2013) developed an integrated model supporting the inbound OI process exploitation, composed of four phases: obtaining innovations from external sources, integrating innovations, commercializing innovations, and interaction, which may occur at any phase of the innovation process. Slowinsky and Sagal (2010) propose, in their well-known WFGM (Want, Find, Get and Manage) model, a set of interrelated phases, each exemplified with core “good practices”, to exploit OI opportunities: once the firms has identified its wants to meet its growth objectives (Want), it has to find, either internally or, if unavailable, externally, the necessary assets to achieve the identified wants (Find) and take steps to get them through collaborative relationships (Get), while managing the OI relationship to success (Manage). The following pictures summarize the described model (Fig.1; Fig.2).
8 Fig.1: Inbound Open Innovation process model by West and Bogers (source: West and Bogers, “Leveraging External Sources of Innovation: A Review of Research on Open Innovation”, 2013).
Fig.2 Want Find Get Manage Model (source: Slowinski and Sagal, Good Practices in Open Innovation, 2010).
Furthermore, regarding the inbound OI process, Tavakoli et al. (2017) outlines as the three fundamental characteristics of an open strategy: (i) transparency; (ii) inclusiveness (iii) ICT-enabled. Transparency refers to the accessibility and visibility of information, strategic discussions and doings. Inclusiveness refers to wide participation in the doing of strategy. Being ICT-enabled indicates how an open strategy proves impossible to be implemented or substantially less effective without the use of ICT. In support of this statement the authors analyse some examples of companies, also detailing which ICTs are adopted in order to foster an open strategy. The ICTs used, resulting from the analysis carried out by Tavakoli et al. (2017) are depicted in the figure below (Fig.3).
9 Fig.3 ICT adoption cases in the context of an open strategy (source: Tavakoli et al., 2017).
All in all and considering that slight discrepancies in the delineation of the processes appear in the literature, namely in terms of the number and labelling of processes rather than the underlying concepts, in the following, I describe how ICT can enable an open strategy, in particular a decentralized innovation process (Gassman et al., 2010), supporting the three main phases which compose the inbound OI process: (i) the obtaining phase, which concerns identifying technologies/innovations (ii) the integrating phase in which knowledge/innovations are integrated and (iii) the managing phase, which is connected with the fact that investments in creating and absorbing knowledge from the outside are often accompanied by investments in knowledge management (KM) that enable the relevant internal processes (Von Krogh, 2012). Therefore, the managing phase, while regarding the management of the potential or ongoing collaborative relationships and the knowledge management issues connected with the inbound OI process, may occur at any phase of the OI process, and hence will be analysed within the obtaining and integrating phases.
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These phases, although presented as discrete, are interdependent and may be overlapping.
2.2 Inbound Open Innovation phases and ICT tools
supporting them
The obtaining phase
The obtaining phase regards the “inbound step of inbound open innovation” process (West and Bogers, 2013), i.e. the process of identifying and sourcing innovations (West and Bogers, 2013), while answering to questions like: (i) what are the firm‟s needs in terms of resources?; (ii) which ones should be internally developed or externally found?; (iii) how can the firm find the external sources of technology and capabilities that fulfil the firm‟s wants? (Slowinski and Sagal, 2010). Firms can identify or search for external sources of innovation by collaborating with a variety of external stakeholders (Laursen and Salter, 2006) or seeking out specialists with useful knowledge (Ili et al., 2010; Tether and Tajar, 2008) to add to or complement the firm‟s internal knowledge base (Laursen and Salter, 2006; Witzeman et al., 2006). Firms may also passively obtain innovation that is “pushed” by external stakeholders (Spaeth et al., 2010). Researchers identified many specific sources of external knowledge (Li and Vanhaverbeke, 2009; Gassmann et al., 2006; Lim et al., 2010; Laursen and Salter, 2006), also distinguishing them between sourced (non-pecuniary) or acquired (pecuniary) (Gassmann and Enkel, 2004; Dahlander and Gann, 2010). As mentioned above, the managing phase is a cross-cutting phase which, while interacting with the obtaining phase, answers questions such as which mechanisms could be useful for fostering the obtaining phase? (West and Bogers, 2013); what could be the implications of the external sources in terms of knowledge creation and innovation?
The rise of the Internet has enabled searches for external sources of innovation, by facilitating technology intelligence (Veugelers et al., 2010), online communities (Dahlander and Wallin, 2006; Füller et al., 2008), crowdsourcing or broadcast search (Ebner et al., 2009; Jeppesen and Lakhani, 2010), and Internet platforms such as blogs and virtual worlds (Droge et al., 2010; Kohler et al., 2009). Two key interaction mechanisms that encourage innovation creation outside the boundaries of the firm have been identified. The first is
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encouraging external innovators by providing effective incentives, whether monetary (extrinsic benefits) such as awards and innovation contests (Terwiesch and Xu, 2008) or non-monetary (intrinsic motivation), as often found in open source software. The second is establishing formal tools and processes that provide a platform for external stakeholders to produce and possibly share innovations (Gawer, 2010). While such a platform accelerates the innovation process, this might be combined with the provision of incentives, as innovation toolkits that include awards distributed based on the quality of the submission (Piller and Walcher, 2006). Awazu et al. (2009) and Rohrbeck et al. (2013) suggest some ICT tools that support foresight and technology scouting at Deutsche Telekom, which can be useful in this phase such as: news readers, which extract and aggregate information on predefined topics from a selection of sources; online idea competitions used to broaden the number of innovative and qualitative ideas; and internet-based broadcast search, i.e. platforms for asking online users to suggest solutions to a given problem (Bretschneider et al., 2015).
The integrating phase
The integrating phase regards the full integration of the knowledge/technology into the firm‟s activities. This phase deals with issues such as (Slowinski and Sagal, 2010): how the firm can evaluate the external sources of technology identified before? Which processes could the firm use to plan, structure, and negotiate an agreement to access external resources? Also, this phase includes: the assimilation, i.e. the analysis and comprehension of the information obtained from external sources; the transformation i.e. the development and refinement of the routines that facilitate the combination of existing knowledge and the newly acquired and assimilated knowledge (Ardito and Messeni Petruzzelli, 2017); and the knowledge exploitation that requires the sharing of knowledge in order to promote mutual understanding and comprehension (Zahra and George, 2002). This phase requires a compatible culture in the R&D organization to overcome the “not invented here” barriers (West and Bogers, 2013). Organizational culture plays an important role in the willingness and ability of an organization to successfully profit from external sources of innovation (West and Bogers, 2013). In this phase, the development of tools for partners‟ assessment and selection could be useful (Aloini et al., 2016).
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Again, as a cross-cutting phase, the managing phase also applies to cope with integration issues regarding, for instance, incentives to motivate people to share knowledge. Sharing knowledge is indeed considered one of the key interaction mechanisms that allow organisations to create value (Garcia-Perez and Ayres, 2010) and foster innovation capability (Hussein et al, 2016).
As regard the support of ICT to the integration phase, two are the main areas. Firstly, ICT can support decisional processes as an example implementing MCDA (Multi Criteria Decision Analysis) (Aloini et al., 2010), largely used to assess the selection of partners and technologies whenever more than one alternative emerged from the obtaining phase. Secondly, ICT can support knowledge sharing: the wikis, for example, are web pages that can easily be edited by anyone and are used to share and collaboratively create knowledge (Rohrbeck et al., 2013; von Krogh, 2012). E-mail and the intranet improve employees‟ ability to keep up with changes and new knowledge; the use of Web 2.0 tools or social software inside organisations improves interaction, knowledge sharing and innovation (Jeed, 2008; Garcia-Perez and Ayres, 2010). PDM/PLM systems or document management systems could foster the collaborative knowledge creation, allowing storing electronic documents centrally, to enable working on them collaboratively (Rohrbeck et al., 2013). Also, virtual communities allow members to actively interact for knowledge sharing, on a specific site in cyberspace, with a strong emotional attachment (Koh and Kim, 2004). Effective tools for the retrieval of knowledge are advanced computer storage technology and sophisticated retrieval techniques, such as query languages, multimedia databases, and database management systems (Alavi and Leidner, 2001).
At a more general level, Hussein et al. (2016) contends that information technology is one of the main enablers of knowledge sharing behaviour. This is because ICT “forces” the conversion of implicit knowledge (i.e. knowledge that is not currently declarative but could be made so) to explicit knowledge (i.e. declarative knowledge), so that knowledge transfer, store, recovery and sharing is facilitated (Griffith et al. 2003). The use of ICT on knowledge sharing however cannot be confined only to the codification effort and its implications in terms of storing and dissemination of knowledge (Alavi and Leidner, 2001): other important effects are at play. Firstly, while increasing „weak ties‟ (informal and casual contacts) between people (Alavi and Leidner, 2001), ICT
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not only allows them to work together (Lin and Lee, 2006), but also increases the knowledge base available to each individual: by providing a field for interaction among people for sharing ideas and perspectives and for cultivating dialog, ICT may enable individuals to arrive at new insights and more accurate interpretations than if left on their own (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). Secondly, according to Griffith et al. (2003), ICT, while reducing the necessity of closed temporal and physical proximity, diminishes the likelihood that homogenous groups are formed for convenience or for reasons simply linked to collocation of members in the same space or time; therefore, teams supported by ICT tools are likely formed when needed skills are not available locally. Hence, ICT allows knowledge to be shared between less similar members than those who are involved in more traditional groups (Griffith et al. 2003); this knowledge diversity allows the recombination of different knowledge sets, and hence has implications in terms of knowledge creation (Ardito and Petruzzelli, 2017). However, more recent contributions have pointed out that the literature so far has mainly honed in traditional implementations - such as databases, knowledge repositories, expert systems, intranets, etc. - and therefore ask for more theoretical and empirical research in order to understand how Web 2.0 – such as blogs, wikis, collaborative workspaces, etc. – impact on knowledge processes, and if there are cross-industry differences as regards the preference towards traditional vs. Web 2.0 technologies (Von Krogh, 2012).
In the following I dig deeper in the sub-processes which compose the obtaining and the integrating phases. The obtaining phase of the West and Bogers model (2013) corresponds to the union of the “Want” and “Find” phases in the Slowinski and Sagal model (2010). The Want phase concerns the identification, assessment and selection of technologies, while the Find phase concerns the identification, assessment and selection of external knowledge sources. The obtaining phase is composed of two sub-processes: (i) technology scouting; (ii) external knowledge sourcing. Instead, the integrating phase regards the collaborations‟ establishment, which includes the assessment and selection of external knowledge sources, contracting policy and knowledge creation and exploitation collaboratively.
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2.3 Inbound Open Innovation sub-phases
Technology Scouting
Technology has been recognized as one of the major sources of competitive advantage (Kocaoglu et al., 2001; Edler et al., 2002; Phaal et al., 2006). For any technology-based company, two questions arise: (1) How can it sustain its technological leadership and thus its competitiveness? (2) How can it develop promising new technologies and use them to move into new business fields (Rohrbeck, 2010)? Research on technological disruptions has also shown that discontinuous technological changes threaten the competitive position of incumbent companies, because they are slower to react than smaller rivals (Christensen, 1997; Arnold, 2003; Danneels, 2004). It also has been shown that being aware of discontinuous technological change does not ensure that the company will be able to produce adequate reactions (Paap and Katz, 2004; Lucas and Goh, 2009). Companies are faced with two challenges (Levinthal, 1992):
identifying, anticipating, and assessing discontinuous change;
effectively using this information to plan and execute appropriate reactions.
Technology scouting is a systematic approach by companies whereby they assign part of their staff or employ external consultants to gather information in the field of science and technology and through which they facilitate or execute technology sourcing. The technology scouting approach should aim to four major goals: (1) early identification of technologies and technological trends; (2) raising awareness of the threats and opportunities of technological development; (3) stimulation of innovation by combining the technology reports with business potential assessment; (4) facilitation of the sourcing of external technologies by allowing for a direct channel through the network of technology scouts to their sources of information (Rohrbeck, 2010). In a broader sense, the goal of technology scouting is to gain a competitive advantage by identifying opportunities and threats arising from technological developments at an early stage and to provide the technological capabilities needed to face these challenges. Technology scouting can be carried out through two different perspectives: (ì) the internal perspective, searching
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information inside the company‟s boundaries; (ii) the external perspective, searching information outside the company‟s boundaries. Furthermore, the research target can be known, when the enterprise searches a specific technology/application or solution, or it can be unknown, when the enterprise searches technologies that could be interesting/useful in the future, and for this reason they should be monitored (Mortara et al., 2009). Technology scouting can rely on formal and informal information sources, including the personal networks of the scouts. The most widely used technology foresight and scouting methods are using automated search mechanisms to find information in databases. Such methods include publication and patent analysis (Porter, 2005; Daim et al., 2006), as well as trend curves, such as technology lifecycles (Jones et al., 2001), and the S-curve analysis (Sood and Tellis, 2005; Modis, 2007; Phillips, 2007). Using such methods in combination with intelligent data-mining tools (Porter and Cunningham, 2005) makes possible to retrieve useful information and can give appropriate answers in a timely manner.
Many studies address the benefits deriving from the technology scouting within the inbound Open Innovation. In fact, it has been shown how technology scouting can dramatically improve the success of the organizations at finding and capturing critical technologies that fuel business growth (Miller, 2015) and how it can play an important role in improving firms' performance through horizontal and vertical collaborations in technology acquisitions (Wang et al., 2015). Wang et al. (2015) argues that technology scouting is positively related to horizontal technology collaborations with competitors allowing firms to tap into advanced technology, thereby providing a pre-emptive advantage that accelerates the innovation capabilities of the firms. Technology scouting is also positively related to vertical technology collaborations, which refers to collaborative relationships among actors belonging to the same supply chain (e.g. an enterprise can collaborate with its customers or suppliers), that allows firms to capture the trends of technologies and knowledge in a timely manner. Technology scouting positively affects the firms' performance, in fact, through the mediation mechanisms exercised by horizontal and vertical technology collaborations, it provides superior performance and it makes possible gaining competitive advantage thanks to the ability to exploit abundant external knowledge and technologies, facilitating in this way the improvement of internal innovation capabilities and efforts. The diagram in figure 4
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graphically shows the relationship between technology scouting and firms' performance mediated by horizontal and vertical technology collaborations as represented by Wang et al. (2015).
Fig.4 Relationship between technology scouting and firms' performance mediated by horizontal and vertical technology collaborations (source: Wang et al., 2015).
External Knowledge Sourcing
In the on-going quest for competitive advantage, organizations have increasingly focused on knowledge as a strategic resource (Alavi, 2000), which has led them to adopt a range of knowledge management practices that are intended to help them to compete more effectively (Wang et al., 2014). In this context, the external sourcing of knowledge is taking a more central role in companies. They often seek to manage knowledge through information technology enabled initiatives that enhance the availability of knowledge. Many firms, for example, implement electronic knowledge repositories so that individuals can access explicit knowledge easily (Gray and Durcikova, 2005). Others offer computer mediated communication channels (e.g., email, forums, and Skype) so that individuals can communicate with experts conveniently to exchange or acquire tacit knowledge (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). Web 2.0 technologies are also gaining popularity, complementing formal knowledge repositories and directories and assisting individuals in their knowledge sourcing efforts (Gray et al., 2011; Zhang et al., 2013). Bretschneider et al. (2015) describes Virtual Ideas Communities (VICs) as instruments that many firms (Dell, Starbucks, Google, SAP, Intel and BMW) relied on for the identification and search for external knowledge. In VICs, firms can post their
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ideas, vote for and comment on other customers‟ ideas, and they can help to improve ideas in a collaborative manner.
Companies can choose different external knowledge sourcing modes, such as cooperation, buying licensing, and so on, in order to react in a flexible way to new technological developments and changing market conditions (Vrande et al., 2009).
Collaborations’ Establishment
A promising challenge in the OI paradigm (Chesbrough, 2003) is building cross-enterprise processes (Deck and Strom, 2002) to leverage the internal strengths with partners‟ competencies and knowledge to provide new/superior products/services (Mohr and Spekman, 1994), to open new market segments, to accelerate innovation process, proving effect of innovation at an early stage to save time and money, to expand product range, and sharing risks and gaining knowledge optimizing the innovation processes (Maurer and Valkenburg, 2011). Researchers and practitioners have recently paid great attention to technological partnering. The need for technological collaboration is increasing and benefits can be gained from participating in networks. In networks, firms can create linkages between each other in order to obtain common or complementary objectives of innovation (Chesbrough and Teece, 1996; Davidow and Malone, 1992; Rothwell, 1994; Upton and McAfee, 1996). Once the firm decides that a certain technology is to be acquired externally, it needs to assess and select the partner and to identify the most appropriate mode for such an acquisition. As regards the assessment and selection of the most adequate partners, the literature puts out that many are the aspects to be considered. These aspects run from the technological focus (Jolly, 2003; Rohrbeck, 2010) to the technological alignment (Emden et al., 2006); from the strategic alignment (Emden et al., 2006); to the relational alignment (Emden et al., 2006; De Araújo Burcharth et al., 2014; Lazzarotti et al., 2015; De Faria et al., 2010; Ford et al., 2012; Ragatz et al., 1997); from the financial focus (Ellram, 1990) up to the co-design effort (De Toni and Nassimbeni, 2001). As regards the acquisition modes, a great variety of organizational modes can be adopted to access external sources of technology (see, for example, Roberts and Berry, 1985; Chatterji, 1996; Millson et al., 1996; Chiesa and Manzini,
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1998): (i) acquisition; (ii) educational acquisition; (iii) merger; (iv) licensing; (v) minority equity; (vi) joint venture; (vii) joint R&D; (viii) R&D contract; (ix) research funding; (x) alliance; (xi) consortium; (xii) networking; (xiii) outsourcing. From a financial point of view there is a distinction between equity and non-equity modes of collaboration, which imply or avoid an equity involvement, respectively. The focus of this research project is on non-equity modes of collaboration, which can be:
licensing, when a company acquires a license for a specific technology. Often especially in the early development stages, many enterprises acquire advanced technologies from multinational corporations, thus being able to combine their own knowledge with externally acquired technologies and accumulating in the meantime the necessary technological skills gradually (Chen and Chen, 2014);
joint R&D, when a company agrees with others to jointly carry out research and development on a definite technology (or technological discipline), with no equity involvement. This form of collaboration does not exclude the continuation of the usual internal R&D activities. Choi et al. (2012) shows how complementarity could exist between internal R&D and joint R&D, and they indicate how contextual variables, such as the firm's cumulative patent stocks and the scientific information inflows from public research institutes and universities, drive the decision to combine in-house and joint R&D;
R&D contract, when a company agrees to fund cost of R&D at a research institute or university or small innovative firm, for a definite technology. Tubig and Abetti (1990) propose four variables as the most influential on performance arising from the R&D contracts: type of R&D, type of solicitation, type of contract, and business size of the contractor;
research funding, when a company funds exploratory research at a research institute or university or small innovative firm to pursue opportunities and idea for innovation;
alliance, when a company shares technological resources with other companies in order to achieve a common objective of technological innovation (without equity involvement). For this form of collaboration Han et al. (2012) confirms some hypotheses about the effects that
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establishing an Open Innovation alliance may entail. They indicate positive returns, further increased every time a leader in its market join the alliance, however determining at the same time also positive abnormal returns for the rival firms that compete with the firms participating in the Open Innovation alliance due to knowledge spill over. Another important aspect that is underlined is that companies that build alliances with heterogeneous partners get higher returns than those who create an alliance composed of more homogeneous partners and, companies that base the alliance on radical innovations achieved greater returns than those that focus on incremental innovations. Finally, another key aspect is that those companies participating in the alliance with full access and decision authority can reap returns much greater than those who have limitations in terms of authority and decision-making power;
consortium, when several companies and public institutions join their efforts to achieve a common objective of technological innovation (without equity involvement);
networking, when a company establishes a network of relationships, to keep the pace in a technological discipline and to capture technological opportunities and evolutionary trends;
outsourcing, when a company externalizes technological activities and, then, simply acquires the relative output, benefiting from complementary capabilities.
In order to choose the more suitable type of collaboration to be established, an important aspect, which has to be considered by firms, is the relation between the acquisition of external knowledge for innovation and the ability to take ownership of these innovations and related benefits, through patenting or other kinds of Intellectual Properties Protection Mechanisms (IPPMs). This issue leads to the "paradox of openness", namely the fact that opening up to outside sources of knowledge to innovate may weaken the firm's power to capture rents from their own knowledge (Laursen and Salter, 2014). In fact, in order to obtain knowledge, organizations have to reveal some parts of their own knowledge to external actors. Managers make their firm “open” by engaging with a broad set of external actors in their innovation activities, but also have to protect their own firm‟s knowledge from being copied by competitors.
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2.4 Overview of existing ICT Open Innovation
Platforms
Literature provides several examples of different designs and conceptions of Open Innovation platforms, both for the functions that are performed, their aggregations and interactions and for the manner in which those functions are executed. Liu and Huang (2016) use such an approach aimed to creating an Open Innovation platform that connects those that offer technologies with those who need technologies, with the objective of maximizing the results and the interests of all the participants, stimulating cooperation. Another example of a designed structure for Open Innovation platforms, emerging form the literature is the Dell Ideastorm platform. As reported by Hossain and Islam (2015) it consists of a system used to get innovative ideas, which can be then applicable. It allows to perform functions, such as the ideas selection by means of votes and comments, and the selection of the users‟ ideas in order to then develop and implement the ideas themselves. Adamczyk et al. (2011) presents the case of an Open Innovation platform whose system allows users to propose innovative contributions and to comment the other ideas proposed, with the overall objective to generate useful knowledge. The literature shows that Open Innovation platforms are attributable more frequently to large companies (Golovko and Valentini, 2011) because of factors, such as the presence of multidisciplinary skills, structured innovation processes, more financial resources and more resources to develop and carry on the network. In some cases, however, there are also examples of Open Innovation platforms designed for small and medium sized companies, able to exploit the typical advantages of SMEs as well as the short decision chains, the efficiency of R&D, short times in internal communication and in decision-making capabilities. Kathan et al. (2014) analyses the challenges that SMEs have to face in the implementation of an Open Innovation platform, referring to the particular case of a regional-scale platform: the "Open Innovation South Tyrol Platform". The aim of this platform resides in trying to help SMEs to overcome the typical problems in a context of Open Innovation, due to their size. To this end, the platform is designed aggregating features ensuring a satisfactory success of the early stages of the Open Innovation process: idea generation, evaluation, selection and concept elaboration. A particular type of Open Innovation platform designed with a different approach, is the web-based collaboration platform for facilitating the
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products design. This type of platform enables users to collaborate real time, encouraging the ideas exchange and eliminating problems such as unnecessary meetings or costs due to errors or delays. Zhan et al. (2003) suggests a web-based collaborative product design platform that allows users involved in the design to be able to access to product data stored in specific servers, so that they are able to work together simultaneously for the product design. Pappas et al. (2006) provides an example of this type of platform, which allows not only to manage the access to product data and the real time collaboration, but it also offers a Virtual Reality environment that makes possible the interaction with products. Lakhani and Panetta (2007) analyse the motivations that drive people to actively participate in open systems such as online communities and Open Innovation platforms and describe the basic organizational principles. Moreover, they propose three different examples of open systems configuration models as regards the general structure and the operation principle in the respective sectors. The first example is a self-organizing community that belongs to the world of Open Source Software like Linux, that manages to get high benefits through a self-select development by many individuals and without much control. The second model presented is the online t-shirt company Thread less, which combines community and commerce thanks to a vibrant and growing community and the independence from canonical forms of advertising and recruitment. The third and final model described is InnoCentive.com, a knowledge broker in the form of platform, built to offer firms the possibility to post problems and to look for a solution with monetary rewards in return.
I describe below the characteristics and quality of some of the main Open Innovation platforms already active. Among the platforms analysed, there are platforms operating for over fifteen years and thus more established and consolidated in the mechanisms and results, such as NineSigma, InnoCentive and BigIdeaGroup, and other ones less consolidated, such as IdeasProject and Inpama. Among the platforms there are even Lombard Region Smart Specialisation Strategy and Open Alps, which specifically affect certain Italian regions and the immediately adjacent areas. The features of each platform analysed are briefly described, and they are summarized in a table (Tab.1), taking into account the surveys carried out by Aquilani and Abbate (2013).
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NineSigma: this platform aims at the concept of fearless innovation, focusing on the reduction of innovation risk that the use of the platform ensures, allowing for innovation in less time and with greater confidence. The concept of fearless innovation includes various typical aspects of Open Innovation. Among them there are the possibility of identifying breakthroughs and actionable knowledge able to link technology with other emerging technologies, openness to unexpected connections which could result in radical changes, the social innovation that brings together via social media the most qualified actors and the unlimited access to innovators who coming from anywhere in the world, with the conviction that any collaboration born with the right confidence can give important results. In connecting companies looking for innovations with the right knowledge, technologies and solutions, NineSigma identifies three different categories of services: (i) create, i.e. breakthroughs including Grand Challenge (to identify solutions that will positively impact the company) and Innovation Contest (to make more rapid development of product); (ii) find solutions to meet innovations needs, with services like Technology Search, Managed Innovation Gallery (for positioning the company as open for innovation), Technology landscaping (to get information and analyse the context of a technology) and Expert Advisory Service (to get from experts answers and technological directions to be followed); (iii) build skills and abilities to improve innovation with services such as Workshops and training (with the aim to achieve improvements in Open Innovation processes, both within and outside the organization) and Leadership Summit (to access to innovation thought leaders). Since its foundation in 2000 NineSigma has been recognized on numerous occasions by local, regional and national awards (http://www.ninesigma.com).
InnoCentive: it is an online platform founded in 2001 to solve problems through the contribution of experts answers. Sawhney et al. (2005) states that “the purpose of InnoCentive is to enable collaboration with lead users and communities of experts who have expertise to solve innovation related problems”. It acts as an intermediary and it is characterized by a breakdown of customers in seekers, such as organizations, public and private companies, government institutions, non-profit organizations, research institutes and public and private
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laboratories, and solvers, such as researchers, professors, scientists, inventors and simple users, with the ambition to identify solutions to problems, receiving in exchange monetary rewards. The statistics show how InnoCentive has already launched more than 2000 challenges, giving away more than 48 million dollars in prize money, it found more than 59.000 solutions to problems and it created a community of solvers, characterized by more than 37.500 people. Many challenges also offer the opportunity for cross-functional collaboration, forming a team. Regarding the determination of prize awards, InnoCentive validates the award amount offered by estimating the complexity of the problem, the amount of resources required and the value of the solution to the seeker company (Allio, 2004). Another interesting platform‟s aspect is that it pays attention to intellectual property, in fact only InnoCentive and the seekers can view the posts proposed in the challenge, and both the seekers and the solvers have to sign legal agreements (http://www.innoCentive.com).
Big Idea Group: Big Idea Group is a platform created in 2000, offering a large number of services in the context of Open Innovation, also making available the contributions of about 13.000 inventors (Lopez and Vanhaverbeke, 2009). After identifying the ideas, the purpose of Big Idea Group is to support the best selected ideas not only by means of monetary financing, but also in terms of dissemination of the ideas themselves. It does not allow the direct relationship between solvers and seekers. Each type of relationship occurs through the intermediary activity, constituting groups of solvers or financing depending on the need. The services offered can be grouped into four focus areas: concierge marketing, innovations labs, investment groups and social good. Marketing concierge consists of offering executive strategic leadership services, such as strategic planning sessions and facilitation of marketing communication activations as creative services and social media. The innovations lab services include reframing planning processes, products, technologies and services innovations and marketing initiatives in order to deliver growth in terms of innovation and creativity. The investments groups provide the possibility to make investments of various shapes, from traditional pay-per-scoped project to direct money and even joint venture investments. Finally for social
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good it is meant activities of non-profit organization pro-bono work and non-profit full service offering, allowing for example, marketing
concierge and innovations lab at reduced rates
(http://www.thinkbigideagroup.com).
Ideas Project: Ideas Project is the open innovation platform of Nokia, which uses it to make faster their innovation processes thanks to the contributes of the online experts. It offers affordable challenges presented in different ways and does not deal with the establishment of expert groups for the resolution of innovation problems posted by companies. It also provides for the presence of an internal search engine with appropriate filters to the challenges.
Inpama: Inpama is the marketplace to sell inventions and patents and provide inventors a platform to sell and market their inventions. Fees from inventors or invention seekers is free. Within the platform the contacts between inventors and seekers occur through the platform, which acts as an intermediary. Tools such as blogs, social media and photo and video documentation of inventions and patents are made available.
Lombardy Region Smart Specialisation Strategy OI platform (Lombardy S3): it is a collaborative Open Innovation platform created by the Lombard Region in an effort to ensure the development and growth of the Open Innovation in the region, aiming to both industrial and social benefits. The Smart Specialisation Strategy Platform indicates the development issues around which the communities arise. Among the functionalities included, the platform allows the identification of innovative and technological challenges to whom the industrial system can answer, actions of cross-fertilization among different technological and production areas, the support for the growth of emerging industries, through the enhancement of key competences and key technologies, the contribution to the Entrepreneurial Discovery for the discovery of new development opportunities. There are also facilitators, whose tasks are to accompany the participants in the efficient and aware use of all the functionality of the system, from the simplest to more complex. The platform is addressed both to individuals with own skills and organizations such as companies, universities, public and private research centres, public interests services operators
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etc. Although it is a system at regional level, it is interfaced with networks and innovation support services on a national and international scale (http://www.openinnovation.regione.lombardia.it;
http://www.s3.regione.lombardia.it/).
Open Alps: The Open Alps project, through its Open Innovation platform, tries to support small and medium-sized enterprises in their innovation processes with external partners, providing them a range of free services. The platform performs an initial division between those who are in search of innovation and those who give contributions to innovation. For those looking for innovation, the system has the ability to launch calls for proposals and publish requests for innovation. The prize for solvers is totally borne by those who launched the challenge/request. The section reserved for those who offer innovation, instead involves companies and the research centres of the Alpine area (the so-called Alpine Space), and enables them to provide answers and solutions to the tender requests. The contact between those offering and those seeking innovation is initiated and supported by the activity of the platform, that nevertheless allows direct contact between the parties. In addition to having a specific geographic focus, this platform also presents a focus as regards the sectors involved, which are mainly those of wood and bio-building and mechanics. The goal is to help Alpine Space companies to start Open Innovation paths that allow them a time reduction of product and process development. The innovation services offered are divided into four areas. The first is "Discovery new opportunities" and aims to identify the signals, anticipate trends and technological, economic and social scenarios. It includes services such as the Market Explorer to search for new areas of application for its technology, Compass Technology to identify current skills and to guide innovation projects, Technology Radar to provide technology updates, Trend Radar, and finally the Patent and Trademark Competitive intelligence based to protect the innovative and creative capacity by involving directly the companies in the management of intellectual capital. The second area is the "idea generation", supported by tools, such as the Design for All, which helps in the creation of new products. The third area, which is the "Design" area, provides services that affect the User centred design (UCD) treating the product-customer
