La innovación por usuarios es una tendencia emergente en la gestión empresarial que puede oscilar entre una externalización parcial del proceso de innovación de una empresa mediante la incorporación de consumidores / usuarios (como el caso de Lego Mindstorms), y la do-it-yourself economy donde los usuarios forman redes independientes de creación e innovación (pero cuyos resultados son susceptibles de ser explotados posteriormente por una empresa; el software libre proprociona muchos ejemplos de este tipo). Los ejemplos son inumerables, prueba de la fuerza de este modelo que reduce costes y, sobre todo, aumenta la creatividad y acelera el desarrollo de productos y servicios innovadores al aportar muchos y variados puntos de vista y experiencias y una capacidad de desarrollo distribuida, barata y potencialmente muy grande (el crowdsourcing). Traigo aquí tres ejemplos que me han parecido especialmente interesantes:
1. Patricia Seybold mantiene el blog Outside Innovation dedicado a la innovación por usuarios y que es el origen de un libro en preparción. Una referencia imprescindible para efectuar un seguimiento del tema (de nuevo un blog se convierte en un instrumento abierto de vigilancia y prospectiva).
2. En Copenhagen Capacity (vía putting people first) comentan (MIT is to make Denmark world champion in user riven innovation) el proyecto del profesor del MIT Eric Von Hippel (quizás la principal autoridad académica en el campo de la innovación por usuarios y autor de Democratizing Innovation) y la Copenhagen Business School para crear el Danish User-Centered Innovation Lab.
… The objective is to make Denmark a world champion in user-driven innovation.
“I really believe that Denmark can be a leader in this area. The flat company structure is an ideal starting point for taking advantage of the users’ innovations just as it seems that there is a political willingness to focus on the area,” says Eric von Hippel to Børsen.
Last week he exchanged information with the development managers from Coloplast, B&O, Danisco, Novo Nordisk, Lego and IO Interactive, which are financing the one year project together with the Ministry of Economy and Business.
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“The leading users are before the market and it is often their ideas that sooner or later interferes with the innovation processes in the companies. In spite of that the companies are organised according to the principle that they are innovating themselves,” states Eric von Hippel. He calls for systematic gathering of the users ideas.
3. Un artículo del Boston Globe (descubierto también gracias a putting people first) analiza en profundidad la incorporación por parte de las grandes empresas de la innovación basada en la colaboración con actores externos (Firms turn R&D on its head, looking outside for ideas). Estas empresas están construyendo un ecosistema de innovación que combina a sus propios innovadores “internos” con otros socios, desde universidades a clientes, pasando por otras empresas (incluso competidoras). El caso de Procter & Gamble Co., el tradicional “campeón” del I+D interno, es paradigmático:
To roll out new consumer products, Procter & Gamble Co. has long relied exclusively on its famed research and development staff.
But over the next five years, fully half of the products it introduces are expected to come from partners, suppliers, universities, contract labs, and other sources outside the company. P&G, which owns Boston's Gillette Co., has been talking to Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital labs, for example, about piggybacking on their skin-care research.
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Against that backdrop, P&G has decided that 50 percent of the products it rolls out in the next five years will come from outside the company, Radjou said. Others are taking a similar approach, assembling product portfolios from other companies, contract lab, suppliers in India, universities in China, and consumer goods manufacturers in Japan.
Their own researchers are morphing into technology scouts. Once confined to labs, they ''have to dust off their neckties and suits to play their new role," Radjou suggested. He said the Boston area, with its concentration of engineering and business schools, could emerge as a leader in training the new generation of researcher scouts.
En este nuevo modelo, los responsables internos de innovación pasan a jugar un papel de vigilancia para localizar las buenas ideas dispersas en el exterior y coordinar los medios necesarios para que esas buenas ideas se conviertan en realidades:
Other companies are converting their own researchers into ''technology scouts" who pick out good ideas and help broker deals with the organizations that own the intellectual property for those ideas.
Such moves signal a radical change in concepts of innovation, once regarded as the secret sauce of successful businesses and the one thing they should do in-house. As new technologies shake up their markets, making consumers more willing to defect, companies are shaking up their methods of bringing products and services to market. Among the outside parties they're reaching out to: their own customers.
El artículo incluye las declaraciones de Particia Seybold y los resultados de algunos análisis de Forrester Research que muestran como la innovación externa consigue acelerar los ciclos de generación de nuevos productos y servicios, una necesidad cada vez más urgente en buena parte de los mercados:
Seybold, drawing on studies by Eric von Hippel, professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, said forward-thinking businesses are setting up online forums to identify ''lead customers," those who are early adopters and passionate users of their products, and work with them to drive innovation. ''Lead customers are good prognosticators of what your customer base is going to need six months out," she said.
As outside innovation supersedes traditional thinking about product development, which Seybold describes as ''our experts are smarter than our customers," companies are grappling with a vacuum in their own organizations, which in the past designed products for the perceived needs of customers and then deployed their marketing arms to publicize the products and convince customers they needed them.
Eighty percent of company leaders surveyed by Forrester complained their inflexible R&D processes weren't keeping up with evolving customer needs. Radjou, who previously chronicled the emerging ''innovation networks" among companies, suppliers, and customers, issued a new report last month, titled ''Transforming R&D Culture," which identified the insular mindset of research and development departments as a barrier to innovation.
''Long cycles are the problem," Radjou said in an interview. ''The clock speed of customer demand is accelerating. In the past, customers played the role of passive recipients. They weren't aware of the choices they had in the marketplace. Today there's greater interest in newness. And nearly half of consumers have no brand loyalty."
