A Portal to Open Innovation: Insights from yet2’s webinar with industry leaders
Words by Carlos Pichardo
Closed mouths don’t get fed. It’s true in daily life and innovation. However, it can be difficult to market innovation needs efficiently and attract the right submitters. yet2 hosted a webinar with Tomoharu Hayama, Open Innovation Manager, Kobayashi Pharmaceuticals, and Kendra Gittus, Global Innovation Lead, Syngenta, to discuss open innovation portal setup, insights, and outcomes.
What is an Open Innovation (OI) Portal?
OI portals are digital interfaces corporations use to voice their innovation needs and allow external innovators to collaborate. A good OI portal outlines desired focused areas, establishes criteria for submission, and provides an easy way for collaborators to submit their proposals. If you want to know more, here are some examples of OI portals yet2 has built and managed.
Why an OI Portal?
Ultimately, a service is only as good as its impact, begging the question: “Why choose an OI portal over other OI methods?” The answer: a good OI portal offers global outreach that doesn’t strain resources or your pockets, presents your organization as a Partner of Choice, and gives innovators a direct channel to collaborate.
The open innovation portal is a centerpiece of our open innovation activities… OI contests, crowdsourcing, accelerators, or CVCs are too expensive…
– Tomoharu Hayama, Kobayashi Pharmaceuticals
As Hayama-san points out, open innovation portals are complementary to other OI initiatives such as scouting, and are efficient and practical for companies seeking opportunities in new industries. In the webinar, Hayama-san goes on to explain how OI portals have contributed to over 50+ collaboration projects!
The other exciting part of OI portals is they create clear channels of collaboration, allowing innovators worldwide to find YOU. Kendra touched on how Syngenta’s new portal helped give potential partners confidence.
Syngenta was a Blackbox, they [collaborators] didn’t know where to send their submissions… with the new Shoots portal… it assures people their idea is going to be reviewed, it’s going to be looked at, and it’s going to the right people at Syngenta.
– Kendra Gittus, Syngenta
yet2’s OI portals are proven to attract promising submissions that lead to real partnerships and deals…talk about impact!
How Can yet2 Help?
With yet2’s years of experience as open innovation consultants and managing over dozens of portals on behalf of our clients, we help guide our clients through the portal setup process, articulation of challenges, and direct filtering of all submissions. yet2 takes care of the front and backend to ensure clients are protected, potential collaborators are empowered, and submissions are well-managed. In the webinar, Kendra and Hayama-san were kind enough to detail how partnering with yet2 ensured their success.
We didn’t want to give away competitive advantages, so we obscured our needs very broadly… that made the job of our scouts difficult because they got a high quantity of very low-quality submissions… we worked with yet2 to clearly articulate our needs and the criteria for an acceptable solution.
– Kendra Gittus, Syngenta
Want to Learn More?
If you want to know more about open innovation portals, sign up for access to the whole webinar below.
Hear from yet2, Syngenta, and Kobayashi on exciting material like the four requirements for open innovation portal success, key strategies, and what to watch out for when setting up your own portal.
Complete the form below to access the full webinar.
Watch another on-demand yet2 webinar on The Unexpected ROIs of Open Innovation Portals.
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