Open Innovation & Wisdom of Crowds

The assumption that the creation and the pursuit of new ideas are best accomplished by a centralized and collocated R&D team is outdated. H.W. Chesbrough argues in his book about Open Innovation that companies are shifting from a closed innovation process towards a more open way of innovating. Chesbrough even states that open innovation is a source of competitive advantage. This vision on innovation goes hand in hand with the ideology of 'The Wisdom of Crowds' promoted by J. Surowiecki. He describes how the aggregation of information within a wise crowd or community can lead to better decisions, better than could have been made by any single member of the group.

The Fuzzy Front-End of Innovation

The innovation process may be divided into three areas: the fuzzy front end (FFE), the new product development (NPD) process, and commercialization. The first part—the FFE—is generally regarded as one of the greatest opportunities for improvement of the overall innovation process. Attention is increasingly being focused on the front-end activities in order to increase the value, amount, and success probability of high-profit concepts entering product development and commercialization.