Open Innovation: how it influences the success of strategies

Abstract

The thesis project will face the subject of innovation, illustrating the development of innovation systems over time and how the concept of innovation has changed. After a brief introduction to the theme, in the first part of the work, we will see the definition of Innovation and, in particular, we will understand why it is so important, where you can apply it, what types of Innovation exist, what are the objects of Innovation, sources of Innovation and measures of Innovation. In the second part we will see how sometimes some of these systems are not efficient for companies that are seeking to innovate and, in particular, we will see some cases of famous companies (i.e. Kodak) where “Innovation” has been not successful just because of a wrong Innovation notion. In that specific case, the problem was related to an Innovation concept that was focused on the consumer and his needs, without putting importance to the realization of the "new" and that didn’t took the distance from the "old winning corporate cultures" which was destined to die over the time. In the third part then, we will derive the importance of creativity, entrepreneurship, new knowledge, changes in the market, consumers of the product concept, the corporate culture. The project goes on analyzing the reasons why some companies don’t want to innovate and the restrictions to innovation. After that we’ll analyze why innovating is so important and necessary within the market and we’ll face some ranks published by Forbes, BCG and Wired about the most innovative companies of the world, paying attention to the features this firms have in common, in order to understand which are the most important characteristic for companies that want to innovate.