Open Innovation Project: how to structure an Innovation system in business?

A luxury cosmetics group wants to initiate an Open Innovation approach within its organization. Highlighting to define How to structure an Innovation system in business around a project OfOpen Innovation.

As with many businesses, the customer of RaiseLab is aware that in order to remain a leader and competitive on its value chain, it is essential to constantly transform. Step by step, RaiseLab is developing the actions taken to support this leader in cosmetics.

The need of the business

As a leader in the cosmetics sector, the main objective of this company is to remain a pioneer in its market, both in its core business and in more offbeat businesses. For this reason, the project OfOpen Innovation aims to innovate more with external partners.

This open innovation has the advantage of increasing its skills and of pushing the limits of its capabilities in terms of Research and Development (R&D) and Innovation. This transformation must take place on the one hand, through optimization, digitalization and operational excellence.

Indeed, the company must be in a position to reinvent itself. This transformation involves monitoring, Research and Development (R&D) of new offers, products and services. Namely that the Open Innovation Project mobilizes the company's management and focuses on 3 axes :

• Definition of governance to be established to structure Open Innovation in companies: Innovation actors involved, decision-making rhythms, budget to be allocated to the Open Innovation process.
• Definition of the operating model associated with the implementation of innovations within the organization: team, financing, sourcing, sourcing, communication tools, scope of intervention for Open Innovation, fields of experimentation, etc.
• Definition of strategic issues to be dealt with for projects developed with Startups: core Business, raw material resources, E-commerce and retail, supply, methods of collaboration to consider.

RaiseLab's support in 3 key areas

To meet the needs of the company, RaiseLab acts as a partner, bringing its expertise and skills for Research and Development (R&D) in 3 key areas :

• La approach to be encouraged for the Open Innovation process. Objectively, RaiseLab opts for a personalized approach adapted to the company.
• The establishment of a governance associated with Open Innovation to support the development of the process within the organization. This governance guarantees the implementation of concrete projects, creating a high added impact for the company.
• THEidentification of business problems : these Business issues should be addressed as a priority and deployed over the course of projects.

To do this, a RaiseLab team, composed of 2 people, is dedicated to the company's Open Innovation project. These RaiseLab stakeholders ensure the implementation to support the client's management team in this process.

The strategic phases of the Open Innovation process with RaiseLab

To help company teams innovate with an Open Innovation approach with high added value, original and adapted, RaiseLab Develops his support in 3 strategic phases :

• Exploratory phase : in comparison with the company's external ecosystem, this first step makes it possible to understand the company's market positioning. La exploratory phase also makes it possible to identify internal Innovations already in place.
• Strategic thinking phase : the whole point of this second phase is to define the strategic challenges of the company and the key success factors of this Open Innovation process, in response to the needs of the company.
• Project-based phase : the third strategic phase aims to define the main objectives of the Open Innovation project, the key stakeholders to be involved and the expected impact for each of the projects.

With this in mind, the RaiseLab team immerses itself in the company and joins employees to understand the Innovations initiatives that already exist. On the other hand, the RaiseLab team carries out the following actions within the organization:

• Interviews conducted with some company actors in Europe, Asia, and North America. The production of this series of interviews allows RaiseLab to understand the Innovations approach already established in the company. The interviews also aim to define How an Open Innovation system can help businesses on a daily basis and over the long term.

Open Innovation Project: methods used by RaiseLab to organize interviews in companies

In principle, RaiseLab organizes interviews in companies with the constitution of 12 groups formed by themes. Each group representing the various business departments is interviewed on their positioning around the development of Open Innovation topics. In a way, this series of interviews encourages reflection and establishes an openness to the collective vision on the challenges of the profession.

In all cases, these challenges are related to Open Innovation in the short, medium and long term. Likewise, interviews make it possible to determine the objectives and stakeholders of the Open Innovation system. To achieve this, here is the method used by RaiseLab :

• Sending a questionnaire to interview participants in Europe and Asia.
• After sending the questionnaires, RaiseLab asks participants to share with their teams to gather additional Insights. The latter come from a larger number of employees attached to the organization. The expanded vision of the larger number of employees deals with the postures and challenges related to Open Innovation.

Following the collection of questionnaires from participants in the Open Innovation process, RaiseLab obtains 48 answers distributed as follows:

• 7 quizzes from the Marketing, Communication, CSR, CSR, Content Creation, Merchandising and Pack organization.
• 28 quizzes from the Operational Excellence, Industrial and Support Functions organization.
• 2 quizzes from the Experience Retail organization and E-commerce.
• 5 quizzes from the Product Development organization.
• 6 quizzes from the organization of Asian Markets.

Support for RaiseLab for the Open Innovation project in business: the results

In general, RaiseLab takes on board today's leading companies and guides the builders (Startups, Large Groups,...) of tomorrow's society. In this context, RaiseLab's support in companies to innovate with Open Innovation makes it possible toidentify 3 major challenges :

• Circulate ideas within the company.
• Structure the “touchpoints” with the outside.
• Act (more) for customers with the mastery of tools and practices that allow them to go further.

On this basis, RaiseLab's support generates 2 categories of projects. All projects focus on internal organization, customers and business:

• 8 innovative projects Quick Win : HR tools, customizing the customer experience, ecological packaging,...
• 5 innovative projects over the long term : factory 4.0, development of new ideas and solutions to meet the complex needs of consumers, eco-strategic approach,...

In the end, RaiseLab offers guidelines on the governance of the Open Innovation Unit (sponsorship, teams, internal relays,...) and leads a half-day workshop with the CoDir. The aim of this workshop is to prioritize the topics selected.

In short, these key information Define How to structure an Innovation system in business For a project OfOpen Innovation. At the end of the mission, RaiseLab comes up with concrete recommendations around the structuring of the overall Open Innovation process and the first concrete projects to be deployed in the company.

‍