Leverage Your Business Ecosystem To Build Your Innovation Network

Few firms have the resources and wherewithal to go it alone in the current climate of almost continual business disruption. Just as a firm may look to partners and suppliers to complement internal operational capabilities, it can likewise multiply the effectiveness of an innovation program by tapping into complementary resources to best fulfill the requirements across the four major roles required to generate and exploit technology-driven business innovation. Forrester calls this interplay of roles the "innovation network." Innovation networks let firms fluidly weave together internally and externally available invention and innovation services to optimize the profitability of their products, services, and business models. This report outlines how CIOs and their business colleagues can take advantage of the organization's entire ecosystem to craft an innovation network — one that exploits, complements, and extends internal resources to maximize the business value of innovation. This is an update of a previously published report; Forrester reviews and updates it periodically for continued relevance and accuracy; we substantially revised this edition to factor in new ideas.