Medium-sized companies face a dilemma: Development cycles are becoming shorter, technologies are becoming more complex, customer requirements are changing faster — but resources remain limited. Anyone who tries to continue to innovate alone risks longer time-to-market, higher development costs and more failed attempts. The alternative that I would like to recommend to you: Open Innovation and strategic networking, i.e. to integrate external know-how, technologies and perspectives in a targeted manner — right where it provides the greatest benefit.
Unlike corporations, medium-sized companies cannot maintain every competence in-house. Networking is thus becoming a scaling principle: It expands one's own development capacity without inflating the organization. In concrete terms, this means working with suppliers, customers, research partners or other companies along the value chain in order to use existing building blocks, experiences or technologies instead of developing everything from scratch yourself.
Your advantage: You benefit from measurable effects, i.e. shorter innovation cycles, reduced development costs and higher learning speed. Because when several partners work on the same goal, they not only share the costs but also the risks.
However, open innovation is not a panacea or a sure-fire. Collaborations can fail if goals remain unclear, interfaces do not work or expectations diverge.
Three factors are decisive for the success of joint projects:
1. Find the right partners This does not mean gathering as many contacts as possible, but specifically closing gaps — in technology, market access or process know-how.
2. Start small. Pilot projects with clear milestones and evaluation points save resources and quickly show whether an idea is effective or whether a timely exit is the smarter choice.
3. Establish governance. Diversity in networks brings different perspectives — but also different ways of working, tempo and risk cultures. Without clear goals, defined roles, and someone to make decisions, energy evaporates.
In my work, I often find that SMEs hesitate when it comes to open innovation. They are afraid of revealing too much internal knowledge. The concern is entirely justified: Data and know-how could not be recovered once they were shared. It is therefore crucial to define the rules of the game right from the start: What information remains internal? What is protected and how? What sanctions apply in the event of misuse? Trust is not created through naivety, but through clarity, reliable structures and contractual arrangements.
Open innovation does not mean opening your own treasure trove, but sharing it in a targeted manner — with the right partners, in the right formats and with clear rules. For medium-sized companies, this is no longer a nice-to-have, but a pragmatic answer to increasing complexity and increasingly scarce development time in dynamically developing markets.
Would you like to actively and economically successfully shape the future of your company? In a joint discussion, we will clarify which goals you are pursuing for the next few years and develop ways to achieve them. I am looking forward to talking to you.
