Beyond closed doors: How to leverage open innovation ecosystems for supply chain success

This paper makes the case for open innovation as an approach that can drive significant value for supply chain organisations. In contrast to traditional innovation, which tends to unfold behind closed doors, open innovation leads to new products, services and operating models as the result of collaboration and co-creation between an organisation and its partners. Drawing from survey research of 1,100 C-suite executives carried out by the American Productivity & Quality Center and the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV), the paper explores leading practices for how organisations can: 1) drive strategic alignment and collaborative culture; 2) measure open innovation process maturity, outcomes and return on investment (ROI); 3) invest in roles, skills and tools for open innovation; and 4) align processes with open innovation. Building a thriving open innovation ecosystem requires thoughtful investments from both organisations and ecosystem partners, but the payoff can be substantial. Organisations with mature open innovation practices see significantly better business outcomes than their peers, including higher ROI from their innovation efforts, faster time to market and higher revenue growth.