How public policy can help SMEs in learning from good open innovation practices.

1. Enabling the silent revolution of open innovationin low-tech SMEs? Wim Vanhaverbeke Hasselt University - Belgium Esade Business School - Spain Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School - Belgium 1 GES 2011, Kiel October 6, 2011

2. What is Open Innovation? “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.” Chesbrough, Vanhaverbeke, WestOpen Innovation: Researching a New Paradigm (OUP, 2006)

3. Outside in : Filling the gaps with external technology Internal Technology Base New Market Current Market External Technology Base Technology in-licensing External research projects Technology acquisition Venture investing R D Source: H. Chesbrough, Sloan Management Review, Spring 2003

4. Inside out OI: Profiting from others’ use of your technology Other Firm’s Market Licensing Internal Technology Base Technology Spin-offs New Market Current Market External Technology Base R D Source: H. Chesbrough, Sloan Management Review, Spring 2003

6. Large manufacturing (and now also services) companies

7. What do we know about open innovation in SMEs:

8. Few articles published so far

9. A few case studies or some survey based evidence

10. No systematic analysis yet of OI in low-tech SMEs 5

11. Some observations Introducing OI in low and medium tech SMEs is important: SMEs are responsible for a large part of employment in manufacturing and services industries SMEs are the drivers of the employment growth Most of them face increasing pressures of globalization and commoditization of their products New ways to explore differentiation of product / services, or trying out experience based competitive advantages SMEs usually do not have internal resources to make these changes – OI is required SMEs are focused on day to day operations. Learning about strategic changes and OI should be practical and time efficient 6

12. CURANA 7

13. Curana: Combining innovation and industrial design 8 The old situation: Steel mudguards and fenders Belgium as market (10 million inhabitants) Family owned business Challenge: Growing economies of scale and globalization of the industry Strategic change: differentiation through innovation or price competition with low-cost import

14. Curana: B"Lite: Mudguard of Curana 9

17. Network as enabler: rapidly changing designs and use of new materials – competitive advantage

18. Economic strength ≠ f(firm size)

19. Network management becomes a crucialnetworkA new management mindset is necessary to realize this 10 Curana: innovation combined with industrial design in low-tech markets

20. 11 Curana: Impact of OI on revenuesandprofits

22. design driven

24. technologydriven

28. How to enable the silent revolution? Speeding up the learning of good practices in low-tech SMEs? 13

29. How do SMEslearn? What does not work? Explanations of academia and consultants Most government led initiatives to stimulate entrepreneurship FP7 programs are to slow and too bureaucratic for most SMEs What works? Stories of entrepreneurs that have been successful Talking to other entrepreneurs with similar ambitions Share experiences and learn from them Some local innovation networks do nice work 14

31. 60 km action radius

32. Non- or semi professional coaches

33. Few good local cases, few managers as speakers

34. Reinventing the wheel problem!

35. High set up costs!

36. How to drastically improve the situation?

37. There are many excellent cases in Europe / world

38. Make a YouTube like movies (10-15 min) about these companies with subtitles in English

39. Put these movies on the web together with a syllabus and some (open) innovation management tools – feedback Web 2.0!Huge impact on the number of companies that learn OI practices and strong improvement in the quality of learning 15

40. www.exnovate.org 16