QUESTION: Real-life examples for inside-out open innovation?

Could you think of any other examples for successful (or unsuccessful) inside-out moves made by companies (in addition to the ones mentioned in the paper)? Why were they successful (or unsuccessful)? How did they manage the move?

I think that one of the successful example can be Apple with their applications developed by third parties. The company turned the internal idea into an open domain, which eventually, shifted costs on develpment ouside and stimulate interest in Apple products by a much wider community.

I agree, I think Apple's Iphone has acheived one of its best attractive characteristics this way. Iphone users can choose applications from the huge number of applications offered for free or for a small charge on the Apps store, all thanks to their 'open' strategy. Its a major competitive advantage.

Google and Yahoo are good examples of Move#4. They provides the API to the public and let developers to develop their own applications. Thus they can form a large ecosystem. Even if it is in a downturn, these two companies still can introduce something new by outsiders and may make money in their ecosystem.

During the period of liberalization of telecommunication in Taiwan. I worked for KG Telecom, which belonged to Koo's group. When I first joined KGT, it was a start-up and just received mobile phone license. Two years later, the comany would like to join the bidding for fixed line license. However, fixed line was a sunk cost investment. The top management of the comany believed that the investment was too risky, because the incumbent player, Chung-hua Telecom was far too strong. Therefore, they took move 2 strategy, establishing a spin-off company, NCIC, which was allied with Far Eastern group, and Lin-Yuan group, both were the leading conglomerates in Taiwan, to develop this new business. They hired a consulting firm for developing the new business plan and started to allocate their resouces together in this new spin-off. Through a careful evaluation, Koo's group decided to quit this project at the end, as it considered the return of this investment would be too long and the cost was too high for them. The Far Eastern group, on the other hand, it would like to make a name in Taiwanese Telecom business, so it continue to join the bidding of fixed line license with other partners. This was the development of Sparq telecom. Although KGT did not cooperate with Far Eastern group in fixed line business, 5 years later, it sold its share of KG telecom to Far Eastern groups and withdrew from the telecommunication markets.

The car industry is also a good example of open innovation. For example, some car manufacturers surch as PSA (Peugeot-Citroen) and Toyota have worked together in order to develop a innovative platform for small city cars. PSA uses this plateform with the C1 and the 106 and Toyota with the Aygo. Developping a new platform is very expensive in the car industry and a good allocation of ressources is very important because this industry is very competitive.

TA_Max_Huang wrote:Google and Yahoo are good examples of Move#4. They provides the API to the public and let developers to develop their own applications. Thus they can form a large ecosystem. Even if it is in a downturn, these two companies still can introduce something new by outsiders and may make money in their ecosystem.

Are these really good examples? did Goggle or Yahoo suffer, at any point, of a downturn in economy? Surely it influenced them in some way, probably their growth and revenue stopped growing so rapidly, but did they really suffer? I believe that thy are still developing their websites and the whole business around them in order to be first ones in new emerging markets (like last weeks Googles mobile platform). So yes, they are growing, but no - their strategy is not due to the downturn and being afraid of looses but simply due to changing environment - more users, more companies etc. (IMO of course, i might be wrong;) )

I heard that in Hsinchu (close to Taibei, where all the Hi-Tech companies are located),there is a government organisation called ITRI (industrial technology &research institute) that works closely with local companies to enhance growth and orientate industrial strategy, a bit like the Japanese MITI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Technology_Research_Institute

As they are supposed to be a non-profit institute, I imagine it could be an example of an open innovation actor, although I'm not quite sure how research patents are "protected" and to whom they benefit.

Maybe a local student/professor could give us more details...?

SFR, one of the mobile phone operators in France has created "L'Atelier SFR", a website where all their clients can express their points of view and their new ideas about all the new concepts and services provided by the operator, before they arrive on the market.
The company can take many ideas from this website to improve its services.

We can think of Procter and Gamble and their new "Connect and develop program" which is meant to publicly post problems and innovation issues on websites for the patents they have and do not use. They claim to be open for business with customers, competitors and anyone who they can do a deal with.

another example: McDonald’s has taken an inside out approach to driving sales by improving store operations, product offerings, and customer experiences. McDonald’s delivers better customer experiences by extending its store hours beyond the standard 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. time period. It also increase the breakfeast sales (mean that more and more people are going there in the mroning).

I'll add some interesting ideas from SNCF, french railways compagny. They've created a website called " TGV Labs " where everyone can post ideas on how to improve the services. It is a true success and some inputs are now used by the SNCF in their trains to improve comfort.
They've created another website "TGV Rezo" which is kind of a facebook for railways travelers. However, this idea hasn't worked out (too few people).

At my university All the departments open up once every semester and share their findings with each other. This can be done because the IP's remain inside the university which runs under a communist-type structure enabling a common stack for wealth to be formed.
Id say this is a good approach for a small society like this uni, however it does miss out on joint projects with other facilities.

I like the heterogeneity of the examples. Now we should assign some work for Naomi_Karnovsky to do. Can you figure out some framework to categorize these examples? We have all sort of examples, including service, manufacturing, IT, telecom, semi-government, and private companies, etc. What are their similarities and differences and what kind of managerial implications can we derive from these examples?

I think Procter and Gamble is very smart to start the Connect & Develop program, however, those hypermarkets, such as Wal-mart or Carrefour are even smarter with a usage of outside-in process.

In the past, purchasing departments have to analyze what product and which brand sell the best in what time period. Now they only have to ask one of the supplier to minic 1 best selling product in terms of product quality and packaging of its own category and put the so called super-value own brand goods right beside the hero products with a 10%-50% lower price tag.

I think it is because of the Retail / Wholesale budiness nature that leads them to take everything it takes to cut cost and reduce risks of not selling or overstocking, no matter with a inside-out or a outside-in method.