Food Processing - May 2008 - (Page 31)

There was a Time when a new producT idea was kept close to the vest until your team had time to develop it and bring it to market. after all, you didn’t want anyone to scoop you. it was your idea, your baby; your company held the intellectual property, and it was risky to divulge information. closed innovation is the name given to this model by harvard Business school professor henry chesbrough. his 2003 book Open Innovation traces the changing business climate and philosophy regarding product innovation over the past century. in a world where the only constant is change, how that change occurs becomes an issue of great importance to everybody with a business interest, including food processors. according to chesbrough, the process of bringing new ideas to market is undergoing what science historian Thomas Kuhn describes as a paradigm shift from the old model of closed innovation to new and open innovation. in the old model, successful innovation required complete control. companies generated new ideas and then developed, built, marketed, distributed, financed and supported the resulting products on their own. This “self-reliant” model was characterized by a “virtuous circle.” investment in r&d led to many breakthrough discoveries that enabled companies to bring new products to market and realize more sales and higher margins, which permitted reinvestment in more internal r&d, which led to further breakthroughs. www.foodprocessing.com in this model, which had generated innovation for decades, internal r&d was viewed as a strategic asset, a barrier to competition in many industries because rival companies needed the resources to invest in their own labs. But evolution proceeds from a change in climate. For many reasons, the closed innovation model evolved. in 1980, congress passed the Bayh-dole act, which allowed researchers to patent inventions developed with government funds. The effect was to make research more available as national labs became open for commercial applications. add to this the influence of the internet and open innovation was on its way. Opening the model The open innovation paradigm, unlike the virtuous circle, expressed the need to work with people both inside and outside the company. it recognized that external r&d can create significant value, while internal r&d is needed to claim some of that value. You don’t have to originate the research to profit from it. erosion of the closed innovation model and movement toward a more open innovation paradigm meant that sharing expertise was now a wise move. application of this model to the food industry means firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas to advance their technology. The risks and pressures in creating a new product or extending a successful product line have increased greatly in the may 2008 food processing • 31 http://www.foodprocessing.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Food Processing - May 2008

Food Processing - May 2008 Editor’s Plate NewsBites The Trends Rollout Food Biz Kids Product Developer turned Bean Counter The top-selling new products of 2007 The open road Back to the Big Easy Managing the global plant A new column with answers to your plant-fl oor questions New Supplier Products Toops Scoops

Food Processing - May 2008

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