Essay Sample on Open Innovation Impact on Samsung Tech Business

Introduction

Open innovation can be defined as a process of coming up with the best ideas with other organizations for a shared reward to mutual benefits and risks (Chesbrough & Vanhaverbeke 2014). The collaboration with other companies makes work easy and quick as compared to achieving alone, it also makes production cheaper and more efficient (Blonstein & Chaney, 2000). This process helps make use of both internal and external sources such as the big customer reach, more academic institution reach, intellectual property, and resources through numerous networks (Huizingh, 2011). This paper will assess how open innovation affects Samsung technology innovations and the risk involved in the use of open innovation as an innovation strategy.

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Samsung Open Innovation

Samsung has adopted the open innovation and has used some in their Samsung Accelerator program which has divided them into four categories: partnerships, ventures accelerators, and acquisition (Kohler, 2016. For example, Samsung has invested in Mobean mobile company. Also, it has collaborated with startups, and Samsung has acquired a smart thing to have a LoT stage without spending money and time on Research & Development (Vanhaverbeke et al., 2008).

Advantages and Disadvantages of Open Innovation

Advantages

The use of open innovation reduces the cost of research especially for technology organizations such as Samsung by using resources that are already developed and cost sharing with other organizations (Jeon, Kim, & Koh, 2015). Samsung is taking advantage of the previously developed concepts by startups which reduces the overall time required to create new products and solutions (Penin et al., 2011). Using open innovation, Samsung can build a network with institutions and universities to jointly develop technology products, and this is also an opportunity to identify and develop talents in the organization research and development.

Disadvantages

Open innovation has its cons in that it leads to the loss of control of critical information or knowledge which is behind the short lifecycle of products and the high cost incurred. Besides, there is significant organization dependence on external knowledge which reduces flexibility and independence in decision making (Ullrich & Vladova, 2016). The intellectual property management and control in open innovation become a challenge because many entities can claim innovation.

Conclusion

Open innovation is a collaborative approach to creativity that involves many organizations which come together to share technical knowledge. Samsung has embraced the open innovation due to the reduced cost and time took to create products, but it is faced by disadvantages such as overdependence on external knowledge as well as the liquidity of the intellectual property control which shortens the lifecycle of products and reduces overall income due to lack of intellectual property advantage.

References

Huizingh, E. K. (2011). Open innovation: State of the art and future perspectives. Technovation, 31(1), 2-9.

Jeon, J. H., Kim, S. K., & Koh, J. H. (2015). Historical review on the patterns of open innovation at the national level: the case of the Roman period. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 1(2), 20.

Kohler, T. (2016). Corporate accelerators: Building bridges between corporations and startups. Business Horizons, 59(3), 347-357.

Penin, J., Hussler, C., & Burger-Helmchen, T. (2011). New shapes and new stakes: a portrait of open innovation as a promising phenomenon. Journal of Innovation Economics & Management, (1), 11-29.

Ullrich, A., & Vladova, G. (2016). Weighing the pros and cons of engaging in open innovation. Technology Innovation Management Review, 6(4).

Vanhaverbeke, W., Van de Vrande, V., & Chesbrough, H. (2008). Understanding the advantages of open innovation practices in corporate venturing in terms of real options. Creativity and innovation management, 17(4), 251-258.