Organizations today are in the midst of a massive cultural shift, but most of them don’t know it:

innovation is no longer a linear process. Instead, it is part of an interconnected ecosystem where people, organizations, and sectors can foster inspiration, idea-generation, co-creation, and validation of ongoing iterations simultaneously. I’m going to share my story of how I have seen this trend grow over the past 5 years.  

Because they can’t see this shift, many modern companies still follow a linear track to manage innovation – even when involving their employees, partners, target clients, or future-oriented groups like university students. This process on average takes one-and-a-half years on average from idea selection, to implementation, and then to market introduction.

In the meanwhile, we can see that companies have started taking their innovation process to the next level, with quicker and shorter iterations, digital collaboration, and cycles of validation to create breakthroughs in traditional R&D areas, but also in business development or social initiatives.

According to PWC’s survey from 2017, with over 1200 executives in 44 countries, 61% of respondents said they are already embracing open innovation activities to generate new ideas, and this percentage is growing with time.

I’m going to highlight three areas where open innovation is heading — to give readers the opportunity to get in front of them. In the age of innovation, it’s time to pioneer the space.

Use customer insights to rapidly validate ideas

What if you were to involve thousands of employees, partners, and target customers to find the best solution validated by customer insights? Utilizing digital technology is the answer. An online innovation challenge is a scalable solution where collaboration multiplies, idea validation strengthens and time-to-market reduces.

How can I make this claim? Because I witnessed companies achieve this, in fact, I’ve seen it over and over again.  The VodafoneYou open innovation campaign engaged talented youths to create a new product. Another great example is Telenor’s open innovation challenge that involved employees and  partners for a customer service development effort. They discovered a breakthrough concept, and when they went to find out whose idea it was, they found that it

came from a mobile store clerk. They went through project planning and implemented their new service within weeks, which resulted in a $100k/month revenue stream and 400,000 customers in just four months.

Here is something exciting: IoT seem to connect technology in a way that enables real-time customer engagement. For example, Cisco and Hyundairecently announced their partnership to create the next-generation connected car experience, and Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi launched Alliance Ventures to invest up to $1 billion in autonomous systems, connectivity and artificial intelligence. Different industries will adopt connected technology where companies use large-scale customer data for more efficient and seamless prototype-validation.

To speed up time-to-market, open innovation initiatives will become dynamically more collaborative. The digital suggestion box doesn’t work for Millennials, Gen-Xers, Boomers or the Greatest Generation, and it won’t work for Gen Y and Z. The future will have no place for simple online forms to submit elaborate ideas. Participants will rather need interactive methods fused with scalable technologies that will allow them to rapidly build up solutions with the help of customer insights. Through tech-enabled design thinking and well-defined short sprints, time-to-market significantly shrinks.