Open Innovation: A New Source of Business Competitiveness

Abstract

The appearance and diffusion of new forms of innovation called open, lead us to question the relevance of this new paradigm, access to a reformulation of the traditional vision, dedicated to internal control of the R&D process, towards a broadening of practices, including external opportunities in terms of ideas, technologies and skills required. It is clear that the efforts of companies in the field of innovation must enable them to reach a significant level of control, which will allow them to obtain a strategic positioning in terms of competitiveness. However, the major transformations of the last 30 years, in the technological, social and economic fields, have had significant effects and a very strong impact on the level of competitiveness of companies. It is undeniable that innovation is not only the sign of the vitality of a company, according to (Schumpeter), but also, a base on which will be the sustainable economic development of a society. Several experiences in the world, show the development of innovative strategies in the field of innovation, in its different forms, which consist in implementing a policy of strengthening individual and collective initiatives, by implementing new models of support to innovation, as the model of open innovation. Indeed, this form of innovation management tends to strengthen inter-company relationships and to increase the exchange of information and cooperation between the company and its partners. The objective of this work is to highlight the challenges of open innovation, by structuring networked companies around open innovation (BCG and CMI report 2008), and the opportunities offered by the latter to companies. This new vision which, according to (Chesbrouch 2003), no longer consists in being satisfied with the internal resources of the company, but rather in relying on the capacity for innovation of multiple external stakeholders. Keywords: open innovation, co-creation, crowdsourcing, business ecosystem, network ambidextria