SMV Crowdsourcing Lab

Abstract:

Over the last years, an increasing number of companies has started shifting from classic to more open and collaborative forms of generating innovation. With the wave of technological development, we have seen the emergence of new business models and innovation methods. The same development has made crowdsourcing a megatrend and perhaps one of the most important methods for companies to involve their stakeholders in innovation and product development. As a systematic Open Innovation method, crowdsourcing has only existed for around 10 years, but has in recent years spread more and more also among Danish companies. A classic example is LEGO Ideas: an online platform where users develop new products along with the LEGO group. Another Danish example is the Carlsberg crowdsourcing contest ‘Cheers to Green Ideas’, which received 162 contributions from 33 countries. At the same time, we see a significant increase in the use of external crowdsourcing platforms, connecting companies to a pool of potential problem solvers (such as Innocentive & NineSigma). There are several other Danish cases, but so far, it has primarily been the large, global companies who have embraced crowdsourcing. This leaves a great, untapped potential for SMEs in need of constant innovation to secure their competitive performance, but without the same resources for business and product development.