Using the Crowd for Open Innovation

One of the objectives of any company is to find a fundamentally new approach to reach and serve its customers better. And a novel approach by several successful companies is the recognition that the world is filled with brilliant people, with brilliant ideas - outside their organisation! Hence, they are constantly looking for ways to work with potential partners and Crowd-sourcing is one such approach. Companies are now sharing their complexities and problems to a large group of people (a crowd), through an open innovation approach in order to solve them.

There are several benefits of leveraging the crowd and one of them is bringing the feeling and a sense of community. Communities of individuals encourages innovative problem solving. There is a continuous flow of information and provides a platform for exchange of new ideas.

The crowd in crowd-sourcing can comprise of several categories of people. Some can be difficult and almost irrational. Helping distinguish the members in the crowd is important. In an interesting article which showcased how crowd-sourcing can help but if not used right, can lead to problems. Using crowd-sourcing as a system's approach to show the whole is more than the sum of the parts can help formulate how a challenge is articulated. Experts have their use, but are only as useful as the number of tricks present in their bag. To break the walls, fresh and different insights are needed. I guess in this post, we played devil's advocate. To the skeptical we showcase the benefits; to the trend-runners we gave possible pitfalls. But with our Open Innovation Platform we have proven experience of the power of crowd-sourcing and open innovation to help you find the right answers to all the innovation roadblocks.

Companies often resist open innovation since most managers and teams are unaware or scared about protecting company intellectual property. They also fear the outcome of trying to integrate a crowd-sourced solution into corporate operations. Also the uncertainty of getting the right solution and the overall cost causes barriers and doubts into the mind of managers who are risk averse.

Crowds with funding help launch ideas, through lower individual investment; and by sourcing garner ideas and solutions resulting in faster development of new products / services. Using the crowd for open innovation can actually be the game changer to increase brand value and get the next big breakthrough your company is looking for.

Are you ready for it?

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