Innovation Networks: Looking for Ideas Outside the Company
Future competitive advantage will depend on “innovation networks” — individuals and organizations outside a company that can help it solve problems and find new ideas for creating growth, according to Larry Huston, managing partner of consulting firm 4INNO.
A senior fellow at Wharton’s Mack Center for Technological Innovation, Huston was vice president of knowledge and innovation for many years at Procter & Gamble, where he was the architect of its Connect + Develop program, an approach that helped extend the company’s innovation process to include 1.5 million people outside of P&G.
Huston spoke with [email protected] about how innovation networks function, the ways they can be nurtured, their potential downsides and the impact they will have on how firms bring products to market.
