Co-Innovation Platforms

Strategies and practices for growing ecosystems are increasingly important in shaping industries and markets. Sustaining productive innovation is not just about you. It depends on others as well as your willingness and ability to collaborate effectively. This book is about how to use, as well as develop, a co-innovation platform to accelerate innovation and sustain ecosystem growth. It will show how you, your team and your organization can create and foster collaborative innovation among a diverse set of organizations that are located outside of your company’s hierarchy.

A co-innovation platform provides an environment where firms can combine or recombine ideas to generate novel solutions. A distinctive feature of the co-innovation platform is its resource-open and hands-on approach to innovation. For many organizations, resource limitations, organizational obstacles and/or time constraints kill an idea before it takes shape. By providing access to demand-side and supply-side resources and capabilities to facilitate co-innovation, the platform solves this problem and shapes the ecosystem’s innovation trajectory from the ground up. This book provides strategic and practical guidance for orchestrating collaborative problem solving and ecosystem growth.

"Operational leaders working in the 21st century know the truth: the future is not created, the future is co-created. This book shows you how to use a co-innovation platform to advance innovation, scale, and growth. A refreshing read with clear, actionable insights – Co-Innovation Platforms provides that practical guidance for you to build what comes next.” 

-- Nilofer Merchant,

An operational leader with companies like Apple, Adobe, and Autodesk, having driven 18 billion in revenues. One of the top 50 management thinkers, and top 10 HR thinkers. Author of three best selling books including the Harvard published 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era. 

 

"Tammy Madsen and David Cruickshank have developed a fresh perspective on platforms, built on both good theory and extensive practice.  If you want to obtain more from your platform, get more involved with the participants in your ecosystem, and open up your resources to them -- You'll get more collaborations, more innovations, and faster growth as a result!"

-- Henry Chesbrough, Professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, and Professor of Open Innovation at Luiss University, Rome

 

 “Innovation is seldom accomplished alone and it’s high time the practice of co-innovation is laid out for organizations to build upon. David and Tammy establish the foundation for collaborative breakthroughs in their bold playbook.”

-- Steve Lucas, CEO ICIMS, inc.

 

 “This playbook walks you through the essential, specific steps you need to take to develop an ecosystem.  In the process, it gets you to think differently about what collaboration and innovation really mean, and why they are important.  The book is essential reading for anyone interested in remaining relevant in business.”

-- Anita McGahan

University Professor, Professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, and a Professor of Strategic Management at the Rotman School of Management where she holds the George E. Connell Chair in Organizations & Society; author of How Industries Evolve: Principles for Achieving and Sustaining Superior Performance.

 

“ David and Tammy have written an important and must-read guide for both large companies at the center of business and technological ecosystems as well as smaller firms who seek to co-innovate, enable and distribute their innovations in a scaled manner.

-- Stephen F. DeAngelis, President and CEO Enterra Solutions, LLC  

 

 “Chock-full of practical insights and immensely useful, Co-Innnovation Platforms by experts Madsen and Cruickshank shares for the first time the successful method of SAP Co-Innovation Lab on stimulating innovation and ecosystem growth. Many books will tell youthat ecosystems and open innovation matters: this one will show you how to make them work in practice.”

-- Annabelle Gawer, Chaired Professor in Digital Economy, Surrey Business School, Director, Centre of Digital Economy (CoDE), University of Surrey, and co-author of The Business of Platforms

 

 “Co-innovation Platforms” is a rich playbook for creating and managing ecosystem innovation.  Recent case studies, involving thirty-five projects, helps the reader tangibly understand how to succeed.  The authors deftly explain the important topic of value creation and capture - and show how it can be equitably shared by all.”

-- John Carter, Founder and Principal, TCGen

 

"Innovation increasingly requires the knowledge and creativity of multiple individuals and multiple organizations. The challenge is integrating these disparate contributions. Madsen and Cruickshank's Co-Innovation  Platforms offers a practical and convincing solution to this challenge."

-- Robert M. Grant, Professor of management (emeritus), Bocconi University, Milan

Author of Contemporary Strategy Analysis

 

“Tammy Madsen and David Cruickshank provide an excellent framing of the strategic benefits of a co-innovation platform for platform owners and co-innovation partners --  from network effects to the next phase of co-innovation in the context of digital transformation using cloud and machine learning – an area I have been working on in Ag Tech for the past few years – spot on, and a cover to cover delightful read!”

-- Phil Mora, Head of Product, Vayda

 

 

“Are you planning to create or considering whether to join a co-innovation environment? Read about a unique combination of “hands-on” platform, structured roles, and diverse interaction patterns similar to natural complex systems that creates a thriving ecosystem of diverse actors.”

-- Dr. Sven Brueckner, Co-founder, CTO / Chief Scientist at ConvergentAI

 

“Want to turbo-charge the scope, pace, and success rate of innovation in your organization? This playbook shows you how — through collaborative partnerships and enabling platforms, tested and proven under real-world conditions." 

-- Mark Yolton, tech executive (Salesforce, Cisco, SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Sun Microsystems, Unisys), board member, adjunct faculty 

 

“Co-innovation Platforms introduces us to an exciting “innovation in innovating” that seem to be crowd-sourcing 3.0.  Whereas crowd-sourcing platforms like Innocentive seek innovations from any contributor using his/her own resources, co-innovation platforms curate access for particular innovators, and provide resources that facilitate collaboration among them.  By hosting co-innovation platforms, companies have the potential to combine the best of both central R&D labs and open innovation. Better still, in the hands of University Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs), these platforms might be able to solve the “valley of death” problem that very few university inventions are commercialized.”

-- Anne Marie Knott

Robert and Barbara Frick Professor in Business, Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis and author of How Innovation Really Works and Forbes contributor

 

“Tammy and David’s exceptional book describes the value of co-innovation platforms and shows how they can enable innovation and ecosystem growth. The book will resonate with any organization seeking to accelerate and advance its innovation capabilities.”

-- Michael Lynch, CEO, Praxie.com

 

“To stay ahead of the trend, companies must continually push the boundaries of their own knowledge.Often, the most disruptive solutions apply innovation from complementors to a company’s existing technology. But going from ideation to application can be stymied when you don’t have access to another company’s technology and knowledge. 

      Madsen and Cruickshank show that the fastest way to fuel novel innovation and growth is through a new type of innovation platform: a co-innovation platform that takes the often-discussed theory of an innovation ecosystem and puts it into practice. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in how to collaborate to fuel innovation and growth.”

-- John Schneider, Vice President, Platform & Solutions Marketing, Intapp

 

“This book captures recipe for success on multiple fronts and offers tons of insights for entrepreneurs who are passionate about disruptive innovation and dream about fast tracking Uberization across all sectors in the age of Digital Transformation.”

-- Jasvir Gill, CEO Alert Enterprise

 

“Co-Innovation Platforms details the new business model for agile and breakaway innovation across a diverse ecosystem.  I witnessed it in action at SAP and put simply, it works!”

-- Margaret Breya, Advisory Partner, JVP Ventures

Tammy L. Madsen (Phd UCLA) is the W.M. Keck Foundation Chair and Professor of Strategic Management and Innovation and a former Associate Dean at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University. She teaches and consults in the areas of strategy, digital transformation and innovation and is the co-author of Modern Competitive Strategy.

 

David Cruickshank, Vice President of SAP multi-Cloud Service Operations, SAP, has worked for several innovative companies in Silicon Valley. His experiences over three decades, from the PC revolution to the edge of hyperscaler multicloud devOps automation and managed services, contribute to his passion for co-innovation.