Outsourcing Innovation: A Comparison of External Providers at Siemens

19 Pages Posted: 13 Nov 2008

See all articles by Zhijian Cui

Zhijian Cui

IE Business School, Operations and Technology Management

Christoph H. Loch

INSEAD - Technology and Operations Management

Bernd Grossmann

Siemens

Ru He

Siemens AG - Munich

Date Written: November 10, 2008

Abstract

Innovation outsourcing has become a widespread practice in R&D management. Five types of innovation partners are the most widely discussed: universities and R&D institutes, customers, suppliers, competitors, and high-technology start-up companies. Previous work has compared these innovation sources with respect to general strengths and weaknesses and main areas of use.

The current paper uses 24 case studies from Siemens practice to characterize specific operational management challenges and success drivers in outsourcing innovations from these five sources. We identify five success drivers that are common to all innovation sources and should be ensured by management whenever possible.

In addition, we find that each innovation source has several specific success drivers. Finally, the management challenges shift when a mature technology is sourced versus a novel, embryonic technology. Our results give managers guidance on how to adapt the operational management of an innovation outsourcing project to the source of the external knowledge and the technology maturity stage.

Keywords: Innovation providers, innovation outsourcing, success drivers

JEL Classification: O32

Suggested Citation

Cui, Zhijian and Loch, Christoph H. and Grossmann, Bernd and He, Ru, Outsourcing Innovation: A Comparison of External Providers at Siemens (November 10, 2008). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1299826 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1299826

Zhijian Cui (Contact Author)

IE Business School, Operations and Technology Management ( email )

Finance Department
Castellon de la Plana, 8
Madrid, 28006
Spain

Christoph H. Loch

INSEAD - Technology and Operations Management ( email )

Boulevard de Constance
77305 Fontainebleau
France
+33 1 6072 4477 (Phone)
+33 1 6074 6716 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: www.insead.edu/~loch/fullcv.htm

Bernd Grossmann

Siemens ( email )

Wittelsbacher Platz 2
München, 80333
Germany

Ru He

Siemens AG - Munich ( email )

Wittelsbacher Platz 2
München, 80333
Germany

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