MAY 2016

TECHNICAL NOTE #07

OPEN INNOVATIONA PRACTICAL GUIDE

TECHNICAL NOTE #07MAY 2016

The EBN Technical Note is a publication designed to inform Business Innovation Centres (EU|BICs) around Europe about the trends shaping their markets.

The publication is also intended to create awareness among policy-makers at European and national level on the value of EU|BICS in creating a dynamic and entrepreneurial spirit in Europe. © EBN, Brussels - Belgium 2016. Reproduction is authorised provided that the reference is

acknowledged. www.ebn.eu

Environmental production. This publication is printed according to high environmental standards. Content: EBN and IdeonOpen

Design: EBN

Cover picture © Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock

CONTENTS

Introduction 3

Why the need to engage in OI? 5

The added value of OI 7

EBN Open Innovation service - EBNopen 9

How to set up an OI platform in your EU|BIC 15

Case study - The Ideon Open experience 18

What’s next? 20

Credits 21

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The Ideon Open team at work

Introduction

The concept of Open Innovation was first introduced by Dr Henry Chesbrough in

2003, in his award-winning book, ‘Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating

and Profiting from Technology’ (Source: Harvard Business Press, 2003).

“Open innovation is a paradigm that assumes that companies can and should source

innovation from external actors as well as their own internal R&D departments”.

Alternatively, it is “innovating with partners by sharing risk and sharing reward.” The

boundaries between a firm and its environment have become more permeable;

innovations can easily transfer inward and outward.

In simple words, engaging in Open Innovation means that the company is reaching

out far beyond its own internal boundaries in order to innovate, involving external

players, working with customers, suppliers, partners, startups, universities, academic

research, private institutions and other players in the ecosystem. This enables the

company to harness external ideas, gain access to bright minds and ideas outside its

own enterprise, from different parts of the world, and as a result, dramatically

increase its own ability to innovate.

Internal Technology Base

External Technology Base External Technology Insourcing

Internal/externalventure handling

Our CurrentMarket

Our NewMarket

Other Firm’sMarket

Adapted from: Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating andProfiting from Technology, Chesbrough, 2003

Licence, spinout, divest

Idea Generation

Concept Evaluation

Business Prototyping

Go to Market

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Open Innovation represents a paradigm shift from a ‘closed’ to an ‘open’ innovation

model. Why & how has this happened? Several important market forces led to the

erosion of the ‘closed’ type of innovation.

In the past, innovation and R&D mainly took place within the company boundaries.

Big corporations like IBM, Siemens, Philips or AT&T used to rely on R&D investment

capabilities as fuel for strong, strategic competitive advantages. They could afford to

invest considerable resources in their R&D labs as opposed to smaller companies in

their industry sectors, therefore creating formidable barriers to entry by competitors

and benefiting from greater success in many markets.

1. With the advent of globalisation, the world became more competitive even for

bigger companies, as they began facing strong competition from young

startups. Enterprises realised that they were not capable of sustaining high

levels of top-line growth with their internal R&D and innovation budgets started

facing increasing pressure.

2. It was also becoming very clear that no matter how big or resourceful a

company was, it could not effectively innovate on its own, as valuable

knowledge exists outside the R&D labs of companies and is widely distributed

across the world. Leaving those areas of knowledge untapped would lead to a

competitive disadvantage.

3. It is also well understood that, while internal R&D divisions are extremely good

at incremental innovation and even radical innovation at times, they are not

generally positively inclined towards disrupting their own products and creating

new markets.

4. Most importantly, it is clearly recognised that all the companies involved in the

value chain, including suppliers, customers, research institutions and others

play an increasingly important role in the whole innovation process, and

contribute directly to the success of innovation in the market.

Over the past few years, many companies have adopted a new mindset on how to

generate new ideas, and bring these to market. There are several examples in the

industry that show that a good percentage of innovation in the consumer goods, bio-

pharma and high technology sectors has been propelled through an open innovation

approach, bringing a significant positive impact on the economy.

A highly successful example is that of Procter & Gamble, who established their

Connect & Develop Open Innovation programme roughly 12+ years ago, following

serious business issues and unsuccessful product launches. The results were

compelling. According to a 2006 Harvard Business Review article, Connect & Develop

delivered 35% of all successful innovations already in the first 2 years of the

programme. Several breakthrough products and well-known brands like Febreze and

Tide Total Care have come out of their Open Innovation programme.

Why the need to engage in OI?

Open innovation has proven to be a more profitable road for businesses to innovate

as it can reduce costs, accelerate time to market, increase differentiation and

competitive advantage, and create new revenue streams for the company.

Several large companies and corporates have adopted Open Innovation as part of

their R&D practices in the past decade, experimenting and implementing to varying

degrees. They have launched Open Innovation Challenges, Accelerators, Open

Innovation programmes, all with the special objective of attracting and collaborating

with startups in order to leverage the innovation they have created through mutually

beneficial partnerships. According to a KPMG survey in 2014, 88% of corporate

managers believe that collaboration with startups is essential for their own

innovation strategy.

Open and collaborative innovation between large, established businesses and young,

emerging technology startups is a ‘hot topic’ because it represents a highly promising

approach to ensure that new business ideas and technologies survive beyond the

incubation phase. It also improves the commercial success of innovation, and

ultimately contributes to Europe’s competitiveness and economic wealth.

Startups and large corporations can definitely benefit from the exchange if they are

able to collaborate correctly. Startups are nimble and agile, not saddled with legacy

systems, disruptive by their very nature and well placed to re-invent new business

models. In addition, current advances in digital technologies, social interaction,

connected objects and intelligent systems are re-defining the manner and speed at

which businesses are conducted. Many companies have recognized that innovation,

continuous innovation, is the key to their success. When working with startups in

partnership mode, large companies/corporates can bring continuously innovative

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products and services to their customer base, offering them a less risky way of

benefiting from these state-of-the-art innovations.

Startups also stand to benefit handsomely by collaborating with larger companies and

corporates. They gain access to market research and knowledge, often get free access

to several tools and technology platforms (at least during the joint development

phase), access to technical training, marketing support, enabling sales, and brand

image by association. Working with large businesses can bring an important go-to-

market advantage for startups, and help them scale up their business a lot faster.

An Executive Survey Report on Open Innovation called “Managing Open Innovation in

Large Firms” published in 2013, jointly by Professor Henry Chesbrough of UC Berkeley

and Sabine Brunswicker of Fraunhofer, provides key facts on the extent to which large

firms are practising open innovation. These figures show that Open Innovation is here

to stay!

• 78% of firms in the report practiced open innovation

• 71% report that top management support for open innovation is increasing in

their firm

• 82% report that, compared to three years ago, open innovation is practiced

more intensively today

• No firms abandoned the practice of open innovation

The concept of Open Innovation has continued to evolve over the years and what we

mean by Open Innovation now is much broader than its original definition introduced

by Dr Henry Chesbrough.

Open Innovation now includes new, open forms of collaboration, partnerships, co-

creation and crowdsourcing, making it a more effective and powerful phenomenon,

bringing bigger and faster benefits to all parties involved. The industry is moving

towards Open Innovation 2.0, an era of Open and Collaborative Innovation which

takes place in a true ‘partnership’ mode.

The added value of OI

Ecosystems are made up by actors

Having understood how OI benefit startups and big corporations, one can’t help but

wonder whether this has an overall positive effect on ecosystems too. In fact, OI

initiatives can benefit a range of stakeholders in many different ways. Those with the

initial ‘pain’ and boosting the OI initiative will gain a solution. Or at least understand

where to look for a partner eager and able to get involved in finding the end solution.

Other actors involved will also gain complete or part solutions to their pains.

For example, a student could earn experience, a startup is introduced to a great

research partner, a large corporation gains insight into trends, a researcher achieves

the possibility to finance current R&D by commercializing other research findings… It

is absolutely essential to understand the ‘pain’ that drives each actor in an OI

initiative as this will ensure that they all get involved.

Actors are connected

Every single organisation pursuing a more collaborative working style in its

innovation strategy will have an impact on its surrounding ecosystem.

All actors within an ecosystem have the constant responsibility of nurturing it to

ensure all actors within it are the most suitable ones. For an actor to take part of your

ecosystem, its benefit should be clear and its pros larger than its cons.

A clear holistic view of your OI ecosystem, with its connected actors, will allow a

higher flexibility of interaction with the external environment. Managing your

environment by partnering with selected stakeholders will certainly translate into

new value to capitalise from.

Actor generation in an OI initiative is far more important than idea generation as the

former will secure successful solutions. One must utilise and expand its ecosystem to

secure the right talent for future challenges and pains. In case your ecosystem lacks

the adequate talent, then it is time to tap into someone else’s ecosystem. It is

important to bear in mind that it is not only the actors within the ecosystem which

must be connected but that different ecosystems should interact as well.

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Two-way results

An ecosystem consists of two parts; an internal one and an external one. Sometimes

the ecosystem also requires an intermediary in order to really excel, e.g. an EU|BIC.

Both actors in the internal and the external part gain tangible results from engaging in

OI.

Different tangible results may be achieved from an OI project. For different

departments these may range accordingly:

• Human Resources benefit from a boost in cultural transformation in line with a

more open and collaborative entrepreneurial organisational behaviour

• R&D gains access to external ideas and development capabilities

• Marketing department acquires suitable arguments for their own value

proposition

• Customers become involved in the right solutions, solutions to problems which

might have previously seemed impossible to solve

The Innovation Ecosystem

• Suppliers strengthen their relationship with customers

• Retirees gain additional professional purpose

• Universities gain insight into what society regards as important or access to

advanced industry machinery/processes

• Society as a whole engages in a more efficient use of resources

Open Innovation impacts many different layers of society and it works by involving

several diverse stakeholders and providing each one a unique value. The focus for an

EU|BIC should not be on the ecosystem itself, but on its potential clients. EU|BICs

have an important role to play in both public and private ecosystems, very often as

intermediaries between other actors such as startups, corporations and public

bodies.

EU|BICs must clarify their own value proposition from the get go in order to position

themselves in the ecosystem of others and tap into significant opportunities.

The EBN Open Innovation Service - EBNopen

Many large companies and corporates are running Open Innovation challenges and

programmes, collaborating with startups in order to spot ground-breaking new ideas

and hot innovative designs/technologies they can leverage. Yet this collaboration has

not met a widespread degree of success, especially in Europe.

Ensuring success of these strategic partnerships requires following clear principles, a

methodical approach and a formalised process, amongst other things. In particular, it

is important to ensure that this partnership approach favours not only the large

companies but helps the startups to reap benefits in their own right and brings them

sustainable business growth and success over time.

In Europe, we still need to show solid improvement in the adoption of Open

Innovation as a way of new business generation, and see many more initiatives

booming in our marketplace.

EBNopen launch

Realising the uniquely advantageous positioning it holds with its ecosystem of

around 150 EU|BICs and 3,000 startups/SMEs spanning most countries in Europe and

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beyond, EBN has decided to act and fully play its part to help fulfil the promise of

open innovation to create more jobs, skills and economic wealth in Europe.

With this clearly stated objective, EBN launched its new Open Innovation service -

EBNopen - at its 2015 Annual Congress. The service is aimed at helping innovative

startups & SMEs in its ecosystem. At the launch, enthusiastic support was given by top-

notch industry leaders and world-class organisations such as The World Economic

Forum, Microsoft, SAP, Continental, Eureka/Euripides and the Open Innovation

Institute.

EBNopen aims to help the thousands of innovative, high potential startups & SMEs in

its ecosystem of innovation centres (EU|BICs) across Europe, to develop tailored

partnerships with large companies and corporates in a systematic & programmatic

manner, in order to scale up faster and accelerate their business growth.

EBNopen is available now and is already being delivered, starting with the digital and

information technology sector, with early adopter customers SAP, Microsoft France,

and other large companies in the process of joining. The intent is to extend to other

sectors such as cleantech, robotics, biotech and other new technology sectors, after

the first year of operation and a few good success stories.

Vasu Briquez, Senior Advisor Open Innovation, EBN, a former senior corporate

executive who is leading this programme for EBN, comments “Corporates and large

Customers

Partners

EBN, EU|BIC EBN, EU|BICCORP

meets

EBN,

engage

CORP

& startups

“Join & Grow”

Scout & Find

Startups/SMEsSelect “top”

Startups/SMEs

Business Stage

CONNECT

EBN Open Innovation Service

companies find our service interesting and attractive because it is flexible, simple,

just-in-time, and gives them a continuous inflow of the latest and brightest

innovations from all countries across Europe, with only a small effort from their side.”

The premise: key considerations in defining the service

1. Understanding startup's aspirations and corporate's interests

While the needs of startups/SMEs and large companies are different, they are actually

quite complementary. The large company/corporate is driven by objectives such as

time to market, competitive advantage, new products/new markets/ business

growth. And this is indeed also to the advantage of the startups/SMEs who are

interested in increasing their customer base and accelerating their business growth.

Industry/corporate partnerships can and do work well when approached intelligently,

with proper expectations and goals set on both sides, without any undue notions of

magical success suddenly landing at the front door.

Assessing the ‘Open Innovation maturity’ of the

corporate/large company

Startups/SMEs face a lot of challenges in the early stages of their business to push

forward with their innovation, so engaging in an Open Innovation partnership with a

STARTUP wants

CORPORATE wants

Access to potential clients Identify new trends

Access to potential distributors Find new hot designs & technologies

Access to potential technology partners

Co-innovation and co-design

Market research, sales and marketing support

Joint go-to-market, sales channels and business development with startups/SMEs

Technology platforms adoption and support

Integrate new technologies and business ideas in corporate offerings

Mentoring to develop specific business area skills

Equity stake in hot startups/SMEs, or acquisition of startups/SMEs

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large company or a well-known brand can be an enormous opportunity for the

startup. Nevertheless, they may encounter several challenges during the actual

undertaking of such a partnership.

This is especially the case if the Open Innovation process is not well implemented in

the large company/corporate, then the startup ends up:

• Having the need to work with several different groups in the organisation to

raise visibility about its innovation and technology/products, with a serious risk

of getting no real payback for the effort spent, or

• Being directed towards Corporate Venture groups who tend to have heavy due-

diligence and competitive processes for making investments or acquisitions,

which may require a lot of time and effort, and ultimately may not lead to any

results

• And possibly, encountering difficulties in defining clear scope, deliverables,

budget, IP ownership, licensing, legal etc.

Clearly, the level of understanding, commitment and preparation of the corporate/

large company is a critical success factor for the partnership. Therefore, an essential

aspect of operating this service is that of giving preference to those large

companies/corporates that have put in place the right processes to work together with

the startups/SMEs. There needs to be a well-defined, well-structured, budgeted, Open

Innovation process, in order for the collaboration to be sustainable, ensuring focus on

win-win objectives.

2. Different types of collaboration possibilities between corporates and

startups

Large companies/corporates and startups may enter into different forms of

collaboration, which have their own advantages as well as disadvantages, for both

parties.

Additionally, in order for the startups/SMEs to obtain the upsurge they need in order to

boost their business, it is highly important to establish connections with the

appropriate corporate divisions or groups, like innovation organisations, partnering

functions and business development groups that can provide the appropriate sales

and marketing support.

This chart summarises a few industry partnership scenarios which are particularly

beneficial for startups/SMEs in terms of helping them scale up and grow their

business. Therefore, EBN will focus on targeting these kinds of partnerships with its

EBNopen offering.

EBNopen Service Model

EBNopen consists of an Open Innovation model and framework which includes a

tailored methodology, an engagement model and a process, along with selection/

qualification criteria for startups.

EBN is committed to developing a sustainable model of Open Innovation, relying on

the exceptional outreach and remarkable startup support capabilities of its EU|BICs

Network. The way the EBNopen model operates, bringing together all the partners in

this ecosystem, is portrayed on the following page.

Corporate Programmes Expected Benefits Requirements

Open InnovationProgrammes

* Contests/challenges /grants

* Startup ecosystem, acceleration

programmes * Co-innovation possibilities

* Embed IP in corp product

* Compete with peer innovator

startups

* Show technology superiority

Partnering Programmes * Access to clients, channel,

distributors, partners, sales, business development

* Co-innovation possibilities

* Unique Innovation/technology

value Proposition * Link to corporate technology

* Show business progress

and results

Corporate Ventures, M&A * Investment capability

* Financing and/or acquisition

* Due diligence

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EBNopen Service Offering

EBNopen provides large companies/corporates with qualified access to the multitude

of innovative, high potential startups/SMEs supported by the EU|BICs in its ecosystem,

in the particular domain of interest/need as specified by the large company/

corporate.

EBN does this by scouting its Europe-wide multi-technology network of thousands of

startups and SMEs, identifying and selecting the most promising ones according to

carefully established selection and qualification criteria.

The startups/SMEs in the EU|BIC ecosystem span many state-of-the-art technology

domains and several industry sectors. For example:

Startupsand SMEs

How to set up an Open Innovation platform in

your EU|BIC

The role which an EU|BIC must play in an OI ecosystem is that of the ‘intermediary’.

That is, the facilitator/navigator between the internal organisation and the external

world, which can be anything from startups, R&D centres, universities, public bodies

to large multinationals. Each role will differ according to its characteristics. New OI

platforms usually stem from a client’s ‘pain’. Using this as the starting point, several

assumptions are created around the potential value that can be created for the client,

thus developing and strengthening a concrete case to work on.

The starting point is always the client’s initial disposition to ‘open up’. Every single

client that EU|BICs work with begin with a predisposed level of openness. There

usually exists a minimal connection between customers/users and some suppliers. In

some cases, students from universities are also involved. A good starting point for

platform-building is to start evaluating a client’s initial level of openness. The second

aspect of the client’s focus is the client’s ‘pain’. Understanding the problem/

challenge/ pain in depth is essential as this will provide clear guidance on what kind

of OI platform is needed. OI may take place in many different forms and the right

approach needs to be suggested by the EU|BIC staff based on their OI expertise.

The pain’s characteristics form the basis of the offer the EU|BIC will have to create

Technology domains Industry Sectors Digital, Info Technology,

Software, Telecom, Cloud, Big Data, Analytics, Apps,

Mobile, Web, Social,

Multimedia, Animation,

Connected Objects, Internet of Things, Hardware, Robotics,

Sensors, BioTechnology, Clean

Tech, Green Technology, 3D Printing, Creative Design &

more

Aerospace, Aviation,

Agriculture, Automotive, Banking, Finance, Insurance,

Retail, Transport, Travel,

Telecom, Manufacturing,

Construction, Engineering, Consumer Electronics,

Healthcare, Pharma, Energy,

Food Processing & more

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both in a specific case and in a general platform. This also includes the financial value

gained once the pain is solved. When both the level of openness and pain are clear,

one can begin to evaluate the extent to which the EU|BIC can assist in order to enlarge

and make the openness bigger and contribute to a solution on the pain.

Client openness & pain vs Your EU|BIC offer

The existing innovation ecosystem around an EU|BIC will determine the role it will

have to take on.

As it occurs with any market positioning, the EU|BIC will serve the purpose of either

competing or complementing. In most cases the EU|BIC will try to complement the

regional ecosystem in terms of OI. For example, if few or none of the clusters are

running, the EU|BIC might adopt this structure. If few within the ecosystem are good at

collaborative challenges driven by innovation projects, then the EU|BIC should

consider specialising in this, or becoming the apt tool for match-making, tech-

scouting, running hackathons, etc. The essential task is to map the regional innovation

ecosystem and ensure your EU|BIC fits in it appropriately.

Regional innovation ecosystem vs Your EU|BIC offer

On one hand, mapping the existing actors’ offer in the region’s innovation ecosystem

with different known OI initiatives is a good start. On the other, it may also be

necessary to map the EU|BIC’s unique selling point (USP) in OI with what’s needed.

Most EU|BICs will have all or only some parts of the below list of USPs. The more

public the organisation is, the less money is given to private owners, and thus, the

more neutral its status.

1. Neutral

2. Credible and trustworthy player in the regional ecosystem

3. Contacts and networks to micro, SMEs and large corporates both locally/

regionally and via other EU|BICs

4. Can show examples of OI that inspire

5. Experienced in running OI projects

6. Entrepreneurial

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The neutrality can be used in three ways:

1. The client can trust the EU|BIC to suggest the best OI way forward for the client

(even if it means the EU|BIC will not be involved in next step)

2. The EU|BIC can use the neutrality when inviting participants to join an OI

initiative. The dialogue created with an inventor, university professor or small

startup is very different if developed during a workshop rather than a large

multinational corporation doing it themselves

3. Thirdly the intermediary role between the solution owner and solution

receiver can be of legal importance when one party wants to limit information

spread. The EU|BIC will act as a guarantee and ensure that the right and

needed info is shared, and nothing else

EU|BIC open innovation USP vs Potential clients’ needs

EU|BICs are well suited for the ‘facilitator’ role due to the six generic USPs involved.

Each site has a most likely additional USPs to strengthen its offer. The sum of unique

selling points makes a potent facilitator of OI.

David Uhilir, Deputy Director of JIC in the Czech Republic (an EU|BIC) reflects on how

long it took them to unleash their role as an Open Innovation facilitator in their

ecosystem: “We at JIC have been working with corporate clients on the basis of open

innovation for the past four years. Actually, it took us some time to realise how

valuable asset we have in our client start-ups and SMEs, including our alumni. And

even more time to find the best way how to capitalise on it. I believe open innovation

can be a very effective, win-win concept that can be useful for all EU|BICs. The access

to large corporations clearly adds value to the

services we provide to our client start-ups and

SMEs while creating a new offering that is

attractive to large corporations who, in

exchange, can contribute by providing their

expert time and can validate the products of our

start-up clients.”

David Uhlíř, Deputy Director of JIC in the Czech Republic (an EU|BIC) reflects on

how long it took them to unleash their role as an Open Innovation facilitator in

their ecosystem: “We at JIC have been working with corporate clients on the basis

of open innovation for the past four years. Actually, it took us some time to realise

how valuable asset we have in our client startups and SMEs, including our alumni.

And even more time to find the best way how to capitalise on it. I believe open

innovation can be a very effective, win-win concept that can be useful for all

EU|BICs. The access to large corporations clearly adds value to the services we

provide to our client startups and SMEs while

creating a new offering that is attractive to

large corporations who, in exchange, can

contribute by providing their expert time and

can validate the products of our startup

clients.”

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Case study - The Ideon Open experience

Everything starts with an idea. Ideon Open’s birth was an idea from a soon-to-be client

that came to Ideon Science Park for assistance: “Our latest breakthrough innovation is

30 years old, you are famous for new ideas, your environment is innovative…can we

not do something together?”

In the spirit of the lean startup way of working we offered a process to solve the

company’s pain. We accepted from day one that we are small and most smart people

work somewhere else, as Bill Joy inspired us to think: “Most of the bright people don’t

work for you. No matter who you are”.

Ideon is a well-established, semi-

public innovation hub in the south

of Sweden, in the city of Lund, 45

minutes from the Danish Capital

Copenhagen, with 30+ years in the

innovation industry. We do not

want to compete with the fully

private innovation agencies, but

rather complement, invite and

work together. The first job was

done together with a consultancy

firm, Implement Consulting Group. Today, four years later, now with eight people

working in a department called Ideon Open, the winning strategy is still the same:

work together with others.

One of the challenges that stems from being successful in delivering value to others is

that we risk to forget that our strength is not ours alone, but it is a collaborative

strength. It is tempting to run assignments by ourselves, just because we can, and

turning a blind eye when those results improve when linking up with others.

Reasons for not wanting to share assignments can be an over-confidence in our own

capability or the desire to keep all the money or turn all the spotlight and prestige of

big clients onto ourselves. One needs to remember that, regardless of how successful

you are, the world of smart people is always greater outside your own organisation.

Another challenge emerges when carrying out visible work, people in the same

industry tend to have an opinion on it. Being a semi-public organisation we need to

balance out what and how we deliver the Science Park’s value. Criticism can come on

the same assignment from two completely different and contradictory views. “You

act too much as a private consultancy firm” or “You behave too much as a public

organisation”. These comments are valuable given that they highlight true views on

the operation, even if the same assignment can be criticised in both ways depending

on what pre-conceived ideas the person has. One should constantly be involved in

the task of assuring the public-private balance in the way the OI platform is run.

Ideon Open has used the funding principle that if enough value is created for a larger

external organisation, in terms of open innovation, entrepreneurship and lean-start-

up thinking, then the client will pay for it. No tax money should be needed.

Nonetheless, exceptions apply to small/micro companies that do not have the funds

to pay even if they aim to prioritise this. SMEs have the ability to pay part of this and

only some tax money is needed to lubricate initiatives.

• Large public and private organisations = fully pay the investment to use Ideon

Open

• SMEs = pay part of the cost, the rest is publicly funded

• For any organisation, independent of size, pro bono work is done, financed by

the profit from assignments with the larger organisations

• Public projects (national, EU etc) only play a minor part, <5% of the funding

At the year-end, no profit is given out to owners. Everything is run not-for profit.

Micro companies are not the target audience in terms of the products offered, but are

the main beneficiaries and the main stimuli that push Ideon to create and manage a

department like Ideon Open. In the case of Ideon, the purpose varies from: wanting

to boost and spread the Ideon brand to make it easier to attract startups to leverage

that they are ‘an Ideon company’. The more awareness is increased, the easier it will

be for the startups to use its context with the Ideon brand as a door opener. Secondly,

the amount of contacts being built at Ideon Open is offered to startups for them to

build a faster relation with a larger organisation, a matchmaking of contacts with

startup needs.

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The guiding principle in the funding arena is to follow the priorities of the larger

private industry. When that is secured, then all other funding possibilities can enlarge

the budget. But the initial investment shall be from the private side. This way of

thinking secures:

a) What Ideon Open offers in its portfolio of products is the right one

b) How it is delivered in terms of both successful results and effects

c) That it really can create high enough value (a value >100 times the investment).

What’s next?

The need to innovate has reached all businesses, in all sectors, being a buzzword in

most workplaces and an essential element for growth and expansion. It seems to be

inherently built in to startup and SMEs ecosystems, whereas big corporations are

lagging behind due to their established and structured operational flow.

The last decade has witnessed the adoption of a more collaborative approach to

innovation on behalf of large companies as they have begun merging their internal

and external resources to welcome ideas from individuals not working within their

own organisations. Nonetheless, before we can start thinking of what will come next it

is essential for all parties within an ecosystem to fully grasp the benefits of working

together. The right approach and attitude needs to be adopted by all actors. EU|BICs

have the imperative role of finding their place within the ecosystem and serving as a

bridge to bring all players together and exchange ideas.

What will come next is definitely intriguing. If large companies are gradually removing

internal barriers and considering consumers, suppliers and researchers on the same

level and equally able and qualified to provide innovations, it will be interesting to see

how they will evolve to safeguard their competitive advantage.

Special thanks to

Giordano Dichter

Head of EU|BIC Services, EBN

David Tee

Head of Membership Services, EBN

Clarelisa Camilleri

EU|BIC Services Assistant, EBN

www.ebn.eu | info@ebn.eu

David Uhlíř

Deputy Director, JIC, Czech Republic

www.jic.cz | uhlir@jic.cz

Credits

Authors

Mats Dunmar

Manager, IdeonOpen

mats.dunmar@ideon.se

Vasu Briquez

Open Innovation Expert, EBN

vasu.briquez@ebn.eu

21

TECHNICAL NOTE #07 MAY 2016

AVENUE DE TERVUREN 168

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