Innovation Managaement

The BIG new product development process

BIG sees themselves as an intermediary between inventors and product/idea buying companies in the kids industry. They search for new ideas from a range of sources, put them in their NPD model and end up with refined idea’s which other companies further commercializes and sells in the consumer market. They believe that by extending their search for ideas outside their own firm they can tap into much more knowledge and find much more great ideas than even the largest companies. “Invention comes from anywhere”. Following Chesbrough’s (2003) terms, - they acknowledge that not all smart people work for them. Further more they also keep all doors open in the back end of their process, all good ideas and products are evaluated against possible paths of commercialization and they are trying to sell the idea to wherever it fits best.

From closed to open innovation

Traditionally internal research has been a great competitive advantage. An advantage difficult for newcomers to challenge due to the high barrier cost of developing an extensive R&D organisation. However the mobility of knowledge workers today and the availability of individual funding through e.g. venture capital have made it difficult for companies to isolate and keep their ideas and knowledge solely inside the firm. In addition the complexity and pace of development in many markets forces many firms to also engage external knowledge to keep abreast. Hence the boundaries of many firms are becoming less rigid and the process of innovation is opening up. This is named open innovation (Chesbrough 2003).

In essence; the traditional closed approach to innovation sought to generate ideas /research, develop the ideas and commercialize the ideas, all within the boundaries of the firm. Open innovation process implies a firm to develop and commercialize both internal and external ideas, as well as both internal and external commercialization of its own technologies and...