Innovation is a crucial investment for any company. Yet, it often remains difficult to measure the return on investment (ROI) of innovation efforts. One thing is clear: organizations that embrace open innovation – that is, collaboration with external partners, startups, customers, or even their own employees – report tangible financial results. For instance, a study by the IBM Institute for Business showed that companies engaged in open innovation see a 59% higher revenue growth rate than their less open competitors. Through three key areas (new products, problem-solving, and internal efficiency), let’s explore how open innovation boosts ROI.
Renewing offerings and boosting revenue through open innovation
Open innovation makes it possible to develop new products and services by drawing on external ideas, which can boost both sales and growth. A flagship example is the LEGO Group, which has involved its customer community in the design of new products for over ten years. Through the LEGO Ideas platform, fans submit kit concepts, vote, and the best ideas are commercialized. This co-creation approach has generated numerous best-sellers for the Danish company and “significant revenue” directly stemming from customer ideas. In 2021, one of these collaborative sets (the Medieval Blacksmith, imagined by a fan) even became one of LEGO’s top-selling products, showing how listening to a community can refresh the offer and generate revenue.
Major multinational companies are also turning to open innovation to accelerate the launch of major innovations. For example, pharmaceutical company Pfizer worked closely with German biotech firm BioNTech to develop the first mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. This open innovation partnership enabled the release of a revolutionary product in record time, with a notable financial impact: in 2021, thanks to the co-developed vaccine, Pfizer generated $81.3 billion in revenue, representing a +92% growth compared to 2020. By opening its R&D to an external partner, the company not only helped save lives but also doubled its revenue in just one year. This large-scale example illustrates the exceptional ROI a successful open innovation initiative can bring in terms of revenue and market share.
Solve problems faster through open innovation
Beyond new products, open innovation is also particularly effective at accelerating the resolution of complex problems. By leveraging collective intelligence beyond the walls of the company, solutions can be reached more quickly. According to a report by the accelerator SOSA, using open models could reduce time-to-market by up to 40% compared to closed innovation models. The reason is simple:
idea contests, hackathons, and open platforms create positive competition among hundreds of brilliant minds working on the same challenge—whereas an internal team alone might have taken much longer to find the answer.
A concrete example illustrates the tremendous effectiveness of open collaboration in critical situations. In early 2020, faced with the risk of a shortage of ventilators for COVID patients, an unprecedented alliance of 33 British companies, called VentilatorChallengeUK, was formed to meet the challenge. Engineers from the automotive, aerospace, medical, and tech industries pooled their expertise to increase ventilator production. The result: this collaborative consortium managed to manufacture the equivalent of 20 years’ worth of ventilators for the British NHS in just 12 weeks. Such a feat—producing more than 13,000 devices in a few months—was only possible thanks to open innovation, with each partner quickly contributing their expertise to solve an urgent problem much faster than with traditional development. This success not only saved lives, but also demonstrated that open innovation can drastically accelerate problem solving and deliver indirect ROI by reducing losses associated with delays and crises.
Generate economies of scale through participatory innovation among employees
Open innovation is not limited to external partners: it also involves tapping into the pool of ideas from one’s own employees (referred to as intrapreneurship or participatory innovation). Employees, who interact daily with processes and products, are often well positioned to suggest targeted improvements that generate productivity gains. Companies that encourage this approach benefit not only from a high volume of ideas, but also from substantial savings. For example, the energy group ENGIE organizes its Trophées de l’Innovation each year, open to all employees. In 2021, no fewer than 560 internal innovative projects from 35 countries were submitted by employees—whether to optimize processes, reduce energy consumption, or create new services. Many of these ideas, once implemented, help improve operational efficiency and lead to the emergence of more sustainable and cost-effective solutions for the company.
Internal ideation programs can lead to impressive economies of scale. Aircraft manufacturer Airbus offers a good example with its internal crowdsourcing platform called “Crowdcraft”. Launched by an intrapreneur at Airbus, this initiative aims to connect the company’s employees (and external experts) to jointly solve technical challenges and invent the aircraft of the future. The results speak for themselves: thanks to this collaborative approach, Airbus achieved 61% cost savings and 59% time savings on its development cycles compared to traditional R&D methods. In other words, involving a broad network of employees and partners in projects nearly halved the usual expenditures and timelines. This level of performance translates directly into positive ROI for the company, which saves millions of euros while accelerating its innovations.
By mobilizing the collective intelligence of their workforce, companies can innovate better, faster, and at lower cost. Whether it’s reducing unnecessary expenses, improving a production process, or finding a clever technical solution, participatory innovation offers a double advantage: it strengthens employee engagement and improves financial performance. This is evidenced by the proliferation of internal hackathons, digital “suggestion boxes,” and other business incubators—all of which, behind their user-friendly HR aspect, actually conceal a significant strategic ROI lever.
Conclusion
In conclusion, open innovation is increasingly seen as a profitable investment rather than a cost. Whether it’s conquering new markets with co-developed products, solving a blocking issue in record time, or nurturing good ideas internally to save resources, post-2020 examples show measurable returns on investment. In a world where technology cycles are accelerating, opening up your innovation ecosystem has become an effective way to maximize the value created by every dollar invested in R&D. Pioneering open innovation companies understand this well: innovating together means innovating for the win—for customers, for partners, and for the long-term profitability of the organization.
