Why Your Company Needs an Open Innovation Strategy

Modern Corporations are in Trouble

Earlier this century, Borders, Blockbuster, and Kodak vanished seemingly overnight. An Innosight study of the S&P 500 found that companies on the list stayed on it for 61 years in 1958, but only 18 years in 2012. According to BusinessInsider, Cisco’s former CEO John Chambers predicted that 40% of today’s major companies will die in the next 10 years.

Technology is changing the lives of consumers and businesses at an unprecedented rate. Those that don’t keep up will become irrelevant before they know it.

Startups on the Other Hand, Are Thriving

Companies like Dropbox, Evernote, and Square have been around just a few short years and have valuations that exceed $1 billion. Uber had seven employees when the company sat on the RocketSpace campus in 2011. Today, it is expected to be valued at more than $50 billion. A value that came in… only 5 years. Other companies have taken decades to reach that same stature.

Startups are popping up all over the world and in huge volumes. In 2014 alone, we saw 3,496 rounds of seed funding to startups around the world and that number will grow higher this year. These companies are bringing new, game-changing products to market at breakneck speed. Corporates must find a way to work with startups, otherwise they stand to lose their business model and their customers at an unprecedented pace. It begs the question: will startups continue to be a disruptive meteorite or become a corporate diamond?

At the end of the day, the open marketplace always innovates faster than any one company.

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