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Figure 1
A review of collaboration in Research & Development – Institutional configurationand open resourcesSummary
This article touches on developments in collaborative research and development efforts. Itexamines key areas where the effects and opportunities where R&D has most influence:Conclusions demonstrate that the broad thrust of innovation is now collaborative, distributedand less proprietary and this is felt most in knowledge-based industries. For enterprises thatwish to remain at the cutting edge, it is the management and discovery of innovation bothwithin and outside the company that are critical. Companies need to make spaces tocollaborate internally and with their stakeholders whilst expanding into outsourcing, partneringand purchasing research and development capacity.
Introduction
R&D is moving away from the research laboratories of large companies in Europe and the US.New innovations and technologies can arise from anywhere in the world and they are morelikely to be born from open networks and collaboration than rolled out of a single institution.Organisations now have little choice but to seek open collaboration – it is a choice of '
Go it alone versus Go it together
', as Robert Rycroft puts it
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. Innovation in isolation is no longer apalatable option in the face of increasingly competitive innovation and mounting knowledgeopportunity costs. Collaborative efforts are responsible for an increasing number of patentsand publications and these relationships are also constructed and operate across borders.Figure 1 shows this increasing reachof international co-authorship andthe dramatic effects of new mediaand new communications.
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Technological advances have maderemote collaboration much easierwith personal communication linksimproved while legal and financialtransactions are more certain andmore secure. Knowledge andinformation are now easily storedand exchanged, it is theirmanagement that is the barrier tofully opening up new learningnetworks.With these opportunities there arenew complexities. These are theemerging frontiers of innovation -
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Robert Rycroft
(2003)
Self-Organizing Innovation Networks: Implications for Globalization
,
, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University.
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National Science Board and the National Science Foundation.
Science and Engineering Indicators 2004
Chapter 5, Figure 5-40 Showing the number of articles with at least one foreign co-author as a share of thetotal number of articles from the region or country
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Collaborative spaces and remote collaboration
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New legal frameworks & intellectualproperty
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Collaboration with clients and suppliers
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Open Source collaboration
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Cross border collaboration and emerging labourrelations
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New institutional setups
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Public policies & Public/Private issues
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Emerging markets for R&D
pushed by new technologies, and redrawn by globalisation. Where there are new policies, legalframeworks, work relationships and ethics, there are also changing markets, institutional set-ups and relationships with clients and suppliers. This is a developing taxonomy of collaborationwith which to understand and recalibrate innovation networks.Few organisations managed a complete transition to more open innovation patterns and aflexible R&D infrastructure, however an emerging class of leading companies is succeeding.Those that have built up experience in this area have been labelled “complexity masters”
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– organisations that can maintain multiplex knowledge interfaces and connections betweeninnovation and R&D; sourcing, manufacturing, and delivery; marketing, sales, and after-salesservice.
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Crossing the frontiers of innovation requires a commitment to a comprehensive effortwhich can open and improve the channels where ideas flow.
Collaborative spaces and online tools
Collaboration tools are now ubiquitous on computer desktops. The open up collaborativespaces for the discussion, development, evaluation and dissemination of research and ideas.Web and email are ubiquitous while tools for conferencing, publication and filesharing are onlya directory away. Each new upgrade, version release and office productivity package bringsfurther opportunities for reliable knowledge sharing while producing challenges for usertraining.A current survey of European scientists
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shows that up to 57% are using newsgroups in theirwork – networking systems for identifying and commenting on research publications andfindings; 52% use FTP to post files - for sharing and electronic publication. They are almostuniversally using the web – locating papers, colleagues and initiatives - compared to the 56%who are sharing and accessing information locally through their intranet. Almost withoutexception, European scientists are using email – the foundation of rapid collaboration – however their performance with slightly newer technologies shows that little progress has beenmade across the board. Only 8% use virtual conferencing tools while around 10% use virtualenvironments and advanced groupware for marshalling and managing knowledge. There isroom for improvement.Corporate use of technologies is more encouraging. There is a greater acceptance of recentsoftware which positively affects co-operation. Research on Instant Messaging use
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withinAT&T shows that it enables team collaboration and finds that:
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The main use of workplace instant messaging is for complex work discussions.
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Collaborators use instant messaging for a range of interdependent activities.
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Coordinators have short, single-purpose conversations, often to schedule interactions inanother medium.
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Instant messaging is a good entry point for collaboration, supports complex collaborationtasks and builds organisational capacity and the potential for full-scale collaboration.Weblogs enable fresh information to be delivered at a wider level for customers, teams andsuppliers
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:
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500 IBM employees use blogs to collaborate on software development projects and businessstrategies in more than 30 countries.
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850 blogs and 1,300 link to a weblog maintained by a Microsoft product marketing managerwhich generates regular feedback to his blog from customers on how to improve Microsoftproducts.
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Mastering Innovation: Exploiting Ideas for Profitable Growth
, Deloitte (2004) p.1 Executive summary
4
Mastering Innovation: Exploiting Ideas for Profitable Growth
, Deloitte (2004) p.10
5
Internet for R&D,
SIBIS, December 2003 p.52
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Instant Messaging introduces complex collaboration
Martin Langham,
IT Director
March 2004
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It's a Blog World After All
, Jena McGregor
Fast Company
April 2004
•
At Hartford Financial Services there are 40 technology managers who use blogs fortroubleshooting agents´ technology problems in the field.Virtual web spaces are allowing opportunities for innovation, idea generation and peermanagement. For example, Mondi – a leader in the paper and packaging industry andsubsidiary of Anglo American – has a centralised team that manages the harvesting, sharing,evaluation and development of innovation
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. Their web-based system, called the InnovationZone, allows a space where ideas can be shared and improved by employees, accessible in aknowledge base until they can be developed by the company or spun off as independentinitiatives. The Innovation Zone is creating a culture where ideas can flourish, such as: radiofrequency identification (RFID) chips for supply chain tracking and a low cost protectivepackaging solutions to challenge the dominance of polystyrene.
Collaboration with clients and suppliers
Product cycles are growing shorter and there is increasing pressure on the expedition of R&D.At the same time there are not enough examples of improvement in communications betweencompanies, their clients and suppliers. Recent statistics from Deloitte
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show that:
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Companies are shortening the time to market for new products from an average of morethan 18 months in 1998 to less than 13 months in 2007.
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By 2010, products representing more than 70 percent of today’s sales will be defunct.
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Only 13 percent of executives say they collaborate extensively with customer on new productdesigns.
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A third of all companies do not collaborate with suppliers to improve production processes.
Reverse innovation
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is possible in listening and learning organisations that are internally andexternally connected from the laboratories to the shopfloor. All relationships should beinterrogated to solicit ideas and improvements while partnerships with suppliers andconnections with customers should allow for more and more of their input and feedback on theresearch and development of products. The example of Natura in Brazil is striking
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:
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40 percent of the company's revenues are derived from products introduced within the lasttwo years. Natura achieved this result with an R&D staff of about 150 and a budget totallingonly 3 percent of net income.
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New product ideas can be quickly tested in the market and immediate customer feedbackcan easily be obtained with its network of over 200,000 direct sales consultants - most ofwhom order and give feedback over the internet. The close relationships between customers,consultants, and also promoters can reveal what type of reception a product will receive -within a week!At Dow Chemicals
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there is also a system of reverse innovation. The company first approachescustomers and asks them to make a wish list of products or technical characteristics. Thisguaranteed demand allows the company to innovate to order. Its laboratories were able torespond to a request for a natural soft-stretch fibre from manufacturers and the resultingproduct – XLA – has the potential to deliver sales of $300 million by 2012.
Cross border collaboration
Transnational companies have good experience in managing crossborder relationships whileregional marketplaces, such as within the European Community, have normalised thesetransactions. Offshoring and outsourcing of R&D is now an attractive option with advantages in
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Mastering Innovation: Exploiting Ideas for Profitable Growth
, Deloitte (2004) p.9
9
Mastering Innovation: Exploiting Ideas for Profitable Growth
, Deloitte (2004) p.3
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Inventing To Order
, Lois Lavelle,
Business Week
June 2004
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What Developing-World Companies Teach Us About Innovation
, Donald N. Sull, Alejandro Ruelas-Gossi, andMartin Escobari.
HBS Working Knowledge
, January 2004
12
Inventing To Order
, Lois Lavelle,
Business Week
June 2004
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