Evonik Industries: Managing Open Innovation

Abstract

Today, open innovation goes far beyond research cooperation with scientific institutes, universities, suppliers, customers, lead users, and industrial entities. Due to web 2.0, enterprise 2.0 solutions and the growing number of intermediaries, the ease and speed of identifying and reaching potential innovation partners, knowledge owners or technology providers has changed dramatically in recent years. Approaches like corporate venturing, participating in publicly funded joint research projects, corporate foresight, and direct acquisition of technology providers have found increasing interest within industrial organizations over the past few years. Evonik Industries relies on the innovation approach of positioning technology scouts in all important growth regions globally, who act as agents for the operative business units and at the same time run a kind of blue-sky scouting for strategic topics of the company. To survive in an increasingly global competition, it is more than essential to be able to identify and join forces with the right innovation partner, who offers exactly the missing piece of knowledge and competence that is needed in order to launch the next innovation more efficiently and faster than the competitors.