Publications
Large firms puzzling over whether to pay for developed technology or take a risk on bleeding-edge concepts now have a third choice–a new kind of “innomediary” that identifies and refines innovations, reducing market risk in return for a share in the potential rewards.
Unlock value by using the Internet to divide your company.
The value of customers goes beyond what they spend.
The Real-Time Enterprise is the next hyped thing. Don’t get swept away.
To get business value out of new IT solutions, vendors have to get them right.
In recent years, many companies have learned to use the Internet as a powerful platform for collaborating directly with customers on innovation. But direct interactions — facilitated by customer advisory panels, online communities and product-design tool kits — have limitations. They don’t always allow companies to reach the right customers at the right time and in the right context. Thus, to fully exploit the Internet as an enabler of innovation, companies need to complement their direct channels of customer interaction by using third parties that can help them bridge gaps in customer knowledge. The authors call this process of indirect, or mediated, innovation innomediation and the third-party actors at the center of it innomediaries. In their research, the authors identified three distinct types of innomediary and observed how each one can help companies acquire different forms of customer knowledge. Using case studies, they suggest ways in which companies can begin to think about exploiting the power of these emerging intermediaries. For businesses that learn to use customer knowledge from both direct and indirect sources, the Internet holds the key to a multichannel innovation strategy.
This article presents the concept of collaborative marketing – the process by which firms engage customers in the co-creation of value. The principles of collaboarative marketing are outlined, along with examples of companies that are beginning to adopt these practices.
The purpose of business is greater than profits.
“Show me the money” may not be the right demand for e-business projects.
E-commerce can flourish anywhere if you build the right business model.
What if companies were compensated based on the value they created for their customers?
B2B exchanges failed because they got their business models backward.
It’s time companies understand what customers are really worth.
Companies can open up their innovation and partner with external networks in more than one way. The question for companies and managers, however, is: how do you know which approach would be most appropriate for your company? This book will help managers find an answer to this important question. It describes the seemingly complex landscape of network-centric innovation – one that is populated by inventor networks, customer networks, supplier and partner firm networks, and open source communities – and offers a roadmap for companies to chart their own path for launching innovation initiatives that involve diverse external networks and communities. Examples and case studies from a wide range of companies and industries – IBM, P&G, DuPont, 3M, Dial, Staples, Unilever, Sun Microsystems, Merck, Salesforce.com, Boeing, Linden Lab (Second Life), etc. – are used to provide practical insights that managers can apply. Written in a highly accessible manner, the book helps managers go beyond the hype and philosophical discussions of open innovation and open source communities and focus on the real practical challenges they are likely to face in championing and leading their companies in network-centric innovation.