- Annalie Killian, Catalyst for Magic, AMP
- Simon Cant, Co-Founder & MD, Reinventure – Westpac’s innovation fund
- Mark Drasutis, Head of Innovation, News Corp Australia
Innovation can easily be crushed by the weight of large organisations. In order to overcome this, many companies are turning to “open innovation” – looking at mechanisms to find and nurture innovations outside of their traditional organisational boundaries. After all, as Berkeley’s Prof Henry Chesbrough remarked “no company has a monopoly on good ideas”.
Even in highly innovative companies like Google, many of their top products have been born outside of the organisation: YouTube, Nest, Google Maps, Android, Gmail. Others, like Apple and their app store, have used vast innovation ecosystems to create sustainable competitive advantage. In Australia, forward thinking companies are exploring with different models of open innovation – R&D collaborations with universities, running hackathons, partnering with entrepreneurial communities to seek out new opportunities.
The next AIIA Financial Services white paper will delve into the various models being used in Australia and around the world. More importantly, it proposes an “Open innovation pathways” model to assist companies in determining which model best suits their needs, budget, and risk appetite.