If they are to master the increased competitive pressures and the acceleration described above, thereby securing their turn­over and profit in the middle to long term, companies will be forced to strengthen their innovative abilities and to optimize their ­innovation processes. The pressure to achieve this by ­especially cost-efficient means has also risen in view of the current world economic crisis. The following discussion will consider two ­innovation methods, “open innovation” and “design thinking”, which address the acceleration of the innovation process as well as its cost efficiency. Can these approaches keep the exorbitant promises they have made, and are they effective enough to ­generate advantages even in times of crisis?

Open innovation approach develops innovation potential ­beyond company boundaries

Open innovation is the opening of a company’s innovation process and the integration of the environment into the innovation activities. Exploration for new products, technologies, processes, or business models can be conducted jointly with suppliers, customers, partners, and/or competitors. ­Generally speaking, a distinction is made between two types of open innovation approaches: one aims at the acquisition of external knowledge, while the other focuses on commercialization of the company’s own knowledge through external cooperation. An important prerequisite is the capability of internalizing external knowledge (outside-in process) and of externalizing internal knowledge (inside-out process). A visualization of the open innovation paradigm, in particular the difference to closed innovation approaches, is shown in Figure 1.

There are various models available for the implementation. A special case as well as the first mention of the open innovation concept is the “Lead User Innovation” presented by E. Hippel in 1986 and today the most widely used one. It incorporates selected and especially progressive users, some of them from other market sectors, in the innovation process. Lead users are especially good at formulating future user requirements and evaluating them on the basis of prototypes, some of them created by the users themselves. Customers are no longer merely passive consumers, but active added value partners, and play an active role in the design of products or services. Another special case of developing external potential is the acquisition of startup companies. Incorporating the startup as a (partially) separate unit in the corporation is a way to maintain its innovative character. Moreover, widely different models of cooperation between the innovation partners are possible.