7 Ways Open Innovation Drives Sales

We were asked recently by a client how open innovation can support sales activities. Here are the headlines of our response.

1. Front of mind – by engaging externally you become more visible and therefore more likely to be front of mind when people are making sales decisions.
2. Enhancing brand image – being perceived as more innovative by customers and potential customers will drive new sales.
3. Building momentum – Open innovation isn’t about getting external ideas, it’s about getting external momentum, by partnering with other companies to source or sell new solutions more quickly.
4. Building sales directly – Customer co-creation provides more commercial opportunities to sell in a more engaging and future-focused way.
5. Building customer relationships – open innovation will build opportunities to sell enhancements to customers through a long term engagement.
6. Growing the market – by moving towards systematically sharing needs or solutions, our experience shows both competition and opportunities can come from outside of your core sectors.
7. Connecting the dots – open innovation at its best creates a shortcut between market research and product development, and pre-tests and builds a customer community before you invest in production or implementation.

So in summary, open innovation absolutely drives sales in a number of interrelated ways. As always, we’d appreciate any comments or builds.