By: Stefan Lindegaard
As a follow-up to my slightly provocative blog post, Why Open Innovation is Not for Small Companies, I have begun looking further into the interesting topic on how small companies can innovate with others.
I plan to interview several small companies and I am working on a set of questions for this. You can see the first 10 questions below. What do you think of them? Can you add others that can help highlight the real issues on this topic?
- Why should small companies embrace open innovation?
- What does open innovation mean to small companies? How does this differ from how big companies view open innovation?
- What are the benefits of innovating together with others for small companies?
- What concerns should small companies have about open innovation?
- How can small companies prepare themselves for open innovation?
- Which business functions should “own” open innovation at small companies?
- What kind of people should work with open innovation at small companies?
- Open innovation is very much about ecosystems with several partners. Small companies often take the back seat in such setups. Is this a problem? Are there things small companies can do to level the playing field in such relationships?
- Small companies often have limited legal resources. What can they do to get better deals and protect their intellectual property?
- Are there myths about open innovation and working with big companies that small companies should realize aren’t true?
Your input is highly appreciated…