A new business innovation model for co-creation
These teams cannot make breakthrough contributions to the organization without the right innovation model that allows for a more collaborative, fluid and dynamic communication process. A recent article in Forbes, explores a new model for achieving this: Innovation Co-Creation (ICC). Central to this model is the notion that stakeholders, whether it be business partners, suppliers, customers or employees, must all work together in a “ more collaborative engagement, with greater interaction and intensity of participation among creators, from generation, selection, incubation, and eventually, even to marketing the new product or service.” The primary goals are to implement a business innovation model and eliminate the practices that hinder the creation of innovative systems. For example, by eliminating silos created by multiple processes, communication barriers that contribute to lower levels of business productivity, and changing practices that stifle creativity innovation can become a core team process.
ICC: A collaborative business innovation model
There are, however, important implications to introducing such an approach across the organization. The success of the ICC approach is based on several emerging factors in business innovation. The increase in the number of collaborators and the numerous interactions between them and across each stage of development add to the complexity of a collaborative approach to innovation. As the article highlights, “the numbers and interactions have grown from one innovator with a small team, to multiple large (few, tens of members) teams within an organization, to larger (several hundred members) external participants, particularly customers.”
These challenges require organizations to leverage the right technological and strategic tools to successfully manage larger, more distributed teams, and more interactions, while at the same time allowing for increased participation with customers.
Does innovation co-creation sound like a sustainable approach? What do you think are the next steps for organizations looking to revitalize their existing business innovation model?