A collaborative dimension
Companies now announce “corporate open innovation centers” and insist on the collaborative dimension of the facility : with the local ecosystem, the local authorities, the clients, SMEs, etc. And – amongst others – with technology providers as well.
what about before?
20 years ago large companies used to open “new R&D facilities” or new development centers”. They used to proudly announce how many Engineers and PhD’s they planned to hire and how they would install the latest equipment to push the technology envelope.
Not anymore.
Have a look at the recent AT&T announcement :
“With already $100 million invested in 4 AT&T foundry centers across the world with the help of sponsorships from companies like; Alcatel lucent, Amdocs, Cisco, Ericsson, AT&T is again planning to open a new innovation center for technology innovation and collaboration in Austin. The center will focus closely on data analysis, education as well as video/mobile applications and solutions and will serve as a catalyst for collaborative innovation between educators, residents, community leaders, technologies and entrepreneurs. Community members will also have a great opportunity to create new content for the AT&T’s TV, online and mobile platforms in the studio dedicated for that.”
The rationale ? Time-to-market and better linkages with customer needs and local innovation capabilities :
“With the help of innovation centers as these, AT&T wishes to narrow down the time to bring projects from concept to commercialization from 2-8 years to 6 months. What started as a traditional phone company that originally preferred to develop new services and products in-house, relying on its once formidable AT&T Labs business, has been transformed to a group that is now able to spark a legion of ideas through a massive crowd-sourcing effort by building more relationships mostly with the startup community.”
[tweetherder]The Corporate Open Innovation revolution is coming ![/tweetherder]
Sources: AT&T , Siliconhills, PRNewswire
