Product Description

In his landmark book "Open Innovation", Henry Chesbrough demonstrated that because useful knowledge is no longer concentrated in a few large organisations, business leaders must adopt a new, "open" model of innovation. Using this model, companies look outside their boundaries for ideas and intellectual property (IP) they can bring in, as well as license their unutilised home-grown IP to other organizations.In "Open Business Models", Chesbrough takes readers to the next step - explaining how to make money in an open innovation landscape. He provides a diagnostic instrument enabling you to assess your company's current business model, and explains how to overcome common barriers to creating a more open model. He also offers compelling examples of companies that have developed such models - including Procter and Gamble, IBM, and Air Products. In addition, Chesbrough introduces a new set of players - "innovation intermediaries" - who facilitate companies' access to external technologies. He explores the impact of stronger IP protection on intermediate markets for innovation, and profiles firms (such as Intellectual Ventures and Qualcomm) that centre their business model on innovation and IP. This vital resource provides a much-needed road map to connect innovation with IP management, so companies can create and capture value from ideas and technologies - wherever in the world they are found.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #57963 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Review
"Chesbrough is not the first academic to grasp the superior economic value of intellectual over tangible property in today's economy. But he may be the one who has thought most deeply about its consequences for business." -- The Wall Street Journal, December 21, 2006

From the Back Cover
Hank Chesbrough's writings on open innovation are some of the most important, insightful ideas about innovation and creating new growth that have ever been written. This book is another crucial cornerstone in this body of understanding, explaining how executives can operate successfully in the new, open innovation landscape. I strongly recommend it for anyone concerned with innovation and growth.

--Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business School, author, The Innovator’s Dilemma

To develop and sustain business excellence, a company must continuously innovate in the very way it creates business value in the marketplace—its business model. To create the most value, the business model must become more open. Open Business Models shows how to create a more open business model, explains the barriers that may arise, and describes how to overcome them.

-- Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Vice President of Technical Strategy and Innovation, IBM

Innovation in the business model is one of the most profound ways to differentiate a business and turn the tables on competition. In Open Business Models, Henry Chesbrough rethinks the traditional approach to business from the ground up. This book should be read by anybody who wants to understand how to innovate in the 21st century global economy.

--Nathan Myhrvold, founder and CEO, Intellectual Ventures

About the Author
Henry Chesbrough is Adjunct Professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, and Executive Director of the Center for Open Innovation at the Institute of Management, Innovation, and Organization (also at Haas).

Customer Reviews

Worthwhile Read for Some
To put my response in context, I work with startup companies every day so I'm continually exposed to the importance of IP and business models and markets and markets and suppliers and distributors... many of the elements that that turn a cool idea or a cool technology into a profitable product.

From that perspective, both this book and Open Business Models are a disappointment. As I would suggest that you only read one (and in most cases the latter), I'll briefly review both here.

Open Innovation is supposed to bring attention to changing industry landscape. In this regard, it does a decent job to point out the trends in innovation and partnerships that are likely to drive companies forward. If you've missed out on IBM's reinvention of itself and are finding increasing pressures on your business, Open Innovation might give you some insight. Unfortunately, the content seems to border on obvious and, since it's thoroughly revisited in the latter book, it doesn't really make sense to read Open Innovation.

Marginally better, Open Business Models offers some simple frameworks or ideas about how to classify companies (based on their embracing of innovation and open innovation) and how companies move from one to another. While offering few or no "aha" moments, Open Business Models paints a decent roadmap of the transition, identifying pitfalls and opportunities. If you were responsible for this process in your company, it could help you understand where you are and how to get where you need to be.

If you're just looking for an insightful read and have any passing knowledge of open business models, I wouldn't bother with either. If you're responsible for this process in your company, try Open Business Models as it could be rewarding. Unless you're devouring everything you can find on the "open innovation" subject, I wouldn't really bother with Open Innovation.

Fair
This is another pretty good book from the author. As in his earlier book, he starts with the motivation for open innovation, which is an old idea but that is not well practiced. In this new book he addresses many of the shorcomings of the first book, such as getting real value out of the partnerships that can be formed while overcoming internal issues, such as NIH. He then talks about different ways companies go about this. What drives you crazy is that he seems unaware that companies have been doing this forever. In the consumer electronics industry, for example, open innovation is mostly the model. Companies like GE, TI, and RCA were examples. In the case of GE and RCA they go back almost 100 years.

Well-written, concise, with specific examples
As with his previous book Open Innovation, Chesbrough provides a concise and easily read review of important new trends in high-tech management. In this book the focus is on the path an innovation takes to profitability in the marketplace. Among the topics reviewed are novel "intermediate markets" for ideas and technology.

I particularly appreciated the chapters of the book that provide nine examples of companies that are more-or-less "pure play" innovation intermediaries. Companies like Innocentive, Ocean Tomo, and UTEK are profiled in depth. I appreciate the specificity, which will allow the reader to evaluate Chesbrough's insights into the future: By following up on the progress of these companies, we'll see how well Chesbrough hit the mark. This specificity is rare in business books.

It will be interesting to see where Chesbrough's interests flow in future. I would welcome a focus on public sector research institutions. A comparison of the innovation and commercialization models among universities, NIH, NASA, ESA, etc. could be helpful to policy makers as Open Innovation ideas gain wider acceptance.