Open Innovation Is Good for Business

Open innovation is an area only beginning to enter mainstream enterprises, despite years of success in open source communities. It allows people both inside and outside the company to get involved and collaborate on new products and processes that result in beneficial change.

Dr. Andrew McAfee, who coined the term "Enterprise 2.0," recently highlighted "open innovation" as an area ripe for mainstream business adoption. Organizations that want to find fresh approaches to their business processes, product or service offerings are encouraged to look outside traditional sources of expertise and be receptive to new contributors.

A research paper released last month by the McAfee-led AIIM Task Force on Social Business and Process Innovation, showed high levels of satisfaction for early adopters, but still found significant levels of reluctance to engage with external stakeholders such as customers, partners or prospects.

Through its case studies and survey results, the McAfee research reveals open innovation is working for its practitioners who report consistently satisfactory outcomes. Forty-eight percent of respondents engaging in open innovation reported major changes to internal processes, while 34 percent reported positive changes to external offerings.