1. Connecting & Enabling:
The innovation intermediaries’ challenge
Open Innovation Speakers Series
Center for Open Innovation
Haas School of Business, Berkeley University
Henry Lopez Vega
Ph.D. Candidate in Management Science
ESADE Business School
email: henry.lopez@esade.edu
Berkeley, September 14th 2010
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2. What you ‘will’ learn:
From an innovation intermediaries’ perspective
• Is open innovation established in companies’ mindset?
• Who drives open innovation in large corporations?
• What are the benefits of open innovation?
• How are innovation intermediaries facilitating open
innovation?
• What are the predominant innovation intermediaries
business models?
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3. Outline for today’s session
• Basics on innovation intermediation
• From one-sided to two-sided innovation intermediaries
• Two-sided innovation intermediaries
• The business model of innovation intermediaries
• Embedding innovation intermediaries in large organizations
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5. 1) What are the, so called, innovation intermediaries?
2) What are the type(s) of innovation intermediaries you know?
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6. intermediation: 101
• Thetertius gaudens. This type of brokers or structural holes
act as “buffers” between two nonreduntant contacts
mediator or tertius iungens: It is responsible for holding the
• The
whole together or enable consensus of the two other colliding
elements.
• Tertius iungens activity may involve coordination without adversarial tension and competing
claims. Parties may be indifferent to one another's interests, oblivious to other potentially
commensurate interests, or even share common interests without being tied together for
the purposes of a given project.
Simmel(1902); Burt (1992); Obstfeld (2005)
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7. What are the most recurrent types of
Innovation intermediaries?
• Innovation intermediaries (Chesbrough, 2006;
Howells, 2006)
• External and internal intermediaries (Wright et al.,
2008; Boon et al., 2008)
• Technology, innovation, knowledge brokers (Winch
and Courtney, 2007; Hargadon and Sutton, 1997)
• Consultants as bridging intermediaries (Bessant and
Rush, 1995)
• Design laboratories, incubators (Dell’Era and
Verganti, 2009; Hansen et al. 2002)
• Bridging institutions (Carlsson and Jacobsson, 1995)
• Knowledge Hub (Third mode universities) (Youtie
and Shapira, 2008)
• Intermediary level bodies or Technological Top
Institutes (Van der Meulen and Rip, 1998)
• Virtual or electronic intermediaries (Klein and
Wareham, 2008; Verona et al. 2006)
• Boundary organizations (Cash, 2001)
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9. One-sided innovation
intermediaries
• Incubators
• Technology Transfer Offices
• Innovation agencies
• Technology,
science and
innovation parks
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10. Innovation Parks
Activities related to collaborative innovation entail the Communities of interests that are designed
to facilitate cross-exploration of initiatives for resident firms. Up to now these communities include:
1) health Wellness; 2) sustainability practices and 3) marketing digital.
✓ Sector selection: This phase included the identification of sectors that attract the interest of a larger number of residents.
The discovery of these needs includes a survey, individual interviews and profiling of their innovation needs and current
capability to innovate.
✓ Idea Generation: This step entails the collaboratively screening of information and evaluation of existing market
opportunities, with internal residents and external experts, through mechanisms such as ethnography, interviews with
field experts, surveys or external information. Around 80 possible ideas are initially identified.
✓ Idea evaluation: Market opportunities are scrutinized and filtered by Creapolis’s residents. Around 12 ideas are initially
discussed through interdisciplinary workshops
Activities related to the open innovation part of EsadeCreapolis’s innovation funnel
✓ Project selection:
Single or a group of residents selected initiatives to develop and commercialize them along the open innovation funnel
External advice from solution providers is enacted through collaborators e.g. Research institutes from the UAB, UB Innoget,
Loop,
✓ Proof of concept: Mentoring and Support assists on the commercializing by providing advice on market identification, funding and
crowd-sourcing
Business Plan advice is received from two Creapolis employees and is limited due to the lack of specific knowledge and
enough time to follow the development of initiatives
✓ Go to market:
Identification and selection of external partners includes advice in contacting and developing the external value network
IP tries to advice partners on how to secure and hinder the replication of developed products or services. It is provided by
an external
External sources of public funding or alliances are identified for launching initiatives. PROPI
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13. Why do technology and idea markets need
Innovation intermediaries?
• Managing and protecting identity: Arrow’s Information
Paradox
• Patent contamination: Avoid reading other companies’ patents
• Reaching unexplored and distant sources of knowledge
• Finding Innovation Partners: A Massive Filtering Problem
• Identifying Useful, Non-obvious sources of knowledge
• Fostering two-sided markets
Chesbrough (2006);Huston and Sakkab (2006); Lichtenthaler and Ernst (2008); Jeppesen and Lakhani (2010); Sieg et al. (2010)
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15. Definition
“Innovation intermediaries are platform providers, in two-sided innovation markets,
designed to co-ordinate and facilitate the flow and integration of innovation requests
and solutions across technological distinct or previously unknown innovation actors
(Lopez-Vega and Vanhaverbeke, 2010)”
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16. Innovation intermediaries’ Business
Model
• Value creation
• Access to organized external networks of
qualified solution providers to solve confidential
innovation challenges or partnering for business
development opportunities
• Transfer or license opportunities of IP or
technologies
• Services to develop external technologies and
embed open innovation within organizations.
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17. Innovation intermediaries’ Business
Model
• Value Capture
Value Chain
• A percentage or a fixed fee from the • Strong network externalities
contract awarded to winning
innovation solvers
• Innovation consultancy services to
facilitate the identification, selection,
• Up-front posting fee to send an development and market
innovation challenges to external commercialization of technologies
networks
• Consultancy services
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18. Innovation intermediaries’ Business
Model
• Market Segment
• Blue Chip companies
• Large companies engaged in research
and New Product Development
Source: NineSigma, Your Encore, Innovaro, Yet2.com
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19. Innovation intermediaries’ Business
Model
Value network
• Co-operative arrangements with
foundations, large companies or
public institutes
• Broaderrange of innovation
consultants, technology centers
and other international innovation
intermediaries
Source: InnoCentive, Innovaro
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20. Innovation intermediaries’ Business
Model
Competitive Strategy
• The size and commitment to provide
solutions and qualifications of the
innovation intermediaries’ solver
network in compare to other
intermediaries
• Differentiation
strategies for specific
type of companies
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21. What are the Canonical Closed innovation
practices ?
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22. How does the ‘closed’ outside-in
model works?
• In the Closed model, IP management was pretty straightforward:
• It all started inside the company; IP policy was to protect
everything; licensing was done defensively; the goal was to
maximize control; you could leave it to the lawyers
• Closed innovation practices:
• Avoid reading other companies’ patents; affirmative defense for
willful infringement; avoid meeting with other companies’ people
without “protection”; the David and Goliath problem
Chesbrough,2006
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23. What your company should do to ‘engage’ and
‘enable’ intermediated (open) Innovation
• Enable the process with financial, human resources and make it part of your agenda
• Select projects based on strategic relevance or urgency
• Involve various stakeholders e.g. marketing, production, lawyers
• Do your ‘homework’ first: search within your innovation, supplier’s network, etc.
• Design a mechanism to select the appropriate innovation intermediary
• Carefully select, discuss and interact with solution providers
• Cooperate with the innovation intermediary to avoid ‘closed’ innovation problems
• When appropriate integrate the solution within the production line and design mechanism to avoid the
NIH problem
• Change and adapt you organizational culture and structure
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27. Questions for discussion?
• Is open innovation established in companies’ mindset?
• Who drives open innovation in large corporations?
• What are the benefits of open innovation?
• How are innovation intermediaries facilitating open innovation?
• What are the predominant innovation intermediaries business models?
• What are the external possible sources of knowledge and how are these used?
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28. !ank y very much for yr comments
and pa#icipation
Henry Lopez Vega
Ph.D. Candidate in Management Science
ESADE Business School
email: henry.lopez@esade.edu
Berkeley, September 14th 2010
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