Innovation guru gives advice to tomorrow’s business leaders

default-hero-image

April 10, 2006

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/ChesbroughH.jpg” caption=”Henry Chesbrough”]If you don't innovate, you stagnate. But how should companies innovate?

Innovation guru Henry Chesbrough will share his insights at McMaster this Thursday (April 13) in a special lecture and round table discussion.

Chesbrough, author of Open Innovation: The New Imperative For Creating and Profiting From Technology, is executive director of the Center for Open Innovation, Haas School of Business, at the University of California, Berkeley. Through his extensive field research, academic study and longtime professional experience in Silicon Valley, he has developed a new paradigm, one that calls for very different organizing principles for managing research and innovation.

In the past, a corporation sought to discover new breakthroughs, develop them into products, build the products in their own factories, and then distribute, finance and service those products — all within the four walls of the company. This paradigm was used to manage many leading industrial R&D facilities in North America.

However, rather than relying entirely on internal ideas to advance the business, Chesbrough suggests an 'open' approach to innovation leveraging both internal and external sources of ideas. Rather than restricting innovations to a single path to market, open innovation inspires companies to find the most appropriate business model to commercialize a new offering — whether that model exists within the firm or must be sought through external licensing, partnering or venturing.

Through rich descriptions of the innovation processes of Xerox, IBM, Intel, Proctor & Gamble, Lucent, Merck and other firms, Chesbrough will illustrate the principles of open innovation in practice. This free lecture will take place Thursday, April 13 from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in John Hodgins Engineering Building, Room A-114. Space is limited so please RSVP to Julia Thomson at thomsoj@mcmaster.ca.

The event is being organized by the Xerox Centre for Engineering Entrepreneurship and Innovation at McMaster University, MaRS Discovery District, the DeGroote School of Business, McMaster's Office of Research and International Affairs, Xerox, Bell, and the Ontario Centres of Excellence.