In a context where innovation is no longer merely a competitive advantage but a survival lever, companies and large groups must move beyond slogans and one-off initiatives. This is where the Global Open Innovation Index becomes an essential tool: it provides a clear vision of the organization’s innovation maturity and aligns all stakeholders around common objectives.
The operational levers detailed in this article, together with the foundational pillars presented in a previous article, form the basis of the Open Innovation Index. Together, they make it possible to measure, prioritize, and advance innovation—from ideation to industrialization—while ensuring strategic coherence across the organization.
Problem-Solving Definition
Problem-solving represents the company’s ability to identify, prioritize, and address its strategic and operational challenges in a structured and collaborative way.
This lever can be implemented through design thinking workshops, foresight sessions, or pain-point mapping, which help identify key issues. These must then be prioritized using frameworks such as the impact/effort matrix, strategic scoring, or OKR alignment.
Expected deliverables include innovation briefs, problem statements, and open challenges, which serve as a foundation for implementing solutions.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) include the percentage of strategic problems formalized and resolved and the number of solutions effectively implemented each year, reflecting the organization’s ability to move from analysis to action.
Idea Competitions and Hackathons
Regularly organizing collective ideation events is a powerful lever for generating concrete solutions and accelerating innovation.
This takes shape through internal or external hackathons, innovation days, and inter-team challenges, often conducted in partnership with universities or developer communities to capture new ideas.
These initiatives must be followed by a post-event process, including incubation of the best proposals and their transformation into MVPs, to ensure ideas do not remain unused.
Key indicators include the number of events organized each year, the conversion rate of ideas into POCs or MVPs, and participant satisfaction levels, which reflect engagement and the quality of collective dynamics.
Continuous Ideation and Watch Communities
Continuous ideation and the facilitation of watch communities aim to establish a constant flow of idea generation and sharing within the company.
This involves setting up digital platforms open to all employees, allowing them to submit, comment on, and vote for innovation proposals.
This mechanism is reinforced by regularly shared technological and sectoral watch reports, feeding collective reflection, as well as gamification and recognition systems that encourage active participation.
Key indicators include the number of ideas submitted each quarter and the percentage effectively evaluated and integrated into the innovation pipeline, ensuring the process remains dynamic and results-oriented.
Customer Feedback and Beta Tester Community
Creating a customer feedback and beta tester community actively involves end-users in the innovation process, enabling co-creation of solutions truly suited to their needs.
This lever takes the form of customer panels, focus groups, and A/B tests, complemented by beta launches before market release.
It promotes a rapid “test and learn” methodology, where insights from user feedback are quickly integrated into product and service development.
KPIs include the number of user tests conducted annually and the average time between feedback collection and integration, reflecting the organization’s responsiveness and agility.
Collective Intelligence on Business Challenges
Collective intelligence applied to business issues mobilizes the entire ecosystem to steer innovation toward business and societal priorities such as climate, inclusion, or public health.
This lever is implemented through multi-stakeholder workshops, business-focused hackathons, and think tanks designed to generate high-impact solutions.
Integrating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into innovation roadmaps ensures that projects support the company’s ESG ambitions.
Key indicators include the percentage of projects aligned with these priorities and the number of active societal partnerships, demonstrating the company’s engagement and its role as a responsible actor.
Open Data and Open APIs Definition
The Open Data and Open APIs axis reflects the organization’s ability to open certain data and provide application programming interfaces (APIs) to stimulate external innovation and foster technological partnerships.
This is achieved through the creation of open data portals with clear developer documentation and sandboxes enabling partners and startups to test and integrate resources easily.
It also requires strict compliance with security, privacy, and interoperability standards to ensure reliable and compliant use.
Key indicators include the number of APIs published and effectively used and the number of third-party applications leveraging open data, revealing the attractiveness and impact of this openness strategy.
Startup Programs and Innovation Labs Definition
Startup programs and labs aim to establish structured collaboration between large corporations and the entrepreneurial ecosystem to accelerate the emergence and deployment of innovative solutions.
This includes the creation of internal incubators and accelerators, excubation programs driven by employees, and strategic partnerships with venture capital funds or tech hubs.
Experimental laboratories or Living Labs allow testing of solutions in real-world conditions before large-scale deployment.
KPIs include the number of startups supported annually, the conversion rate of MVPs into launched products or services, and the return on investment generated by these collaborations, demonstrating the strategic value of this lever.
Out-Licensing and IP Valorization
Out-licensing and intellectual property (IP) valorization consist of transforming the company’s internal innovations (patents, software, processes, or know-how) into revenue streams and collaboration levers with the external ecosystem.
This lever relies on inventorying and valuing intangible assets, negotiating license agreements with industry players or startups, and developing technology transfer programs in partnership with universities and research centers.
KPIs include the number of licenses granted each year and the revenue generated from IP exploitation, reflecting the organization’s ability to capitalize on its innovations and extend their impact beyond its boundaries.
By activating these eight levers simultaneously (problem-solving, hackathons, continuous ideation, customer feedback, collective intelligence, open data, startup programs, and out-licensing), the company builds a robust innovation ecosystem capable of delivering measurable and sustainable results.
The Global Open Innovation Index is no longer just a dashboard—it becomes a strategic compass that translates innovation vision into concrete action.
Developer Community
The developer community is a key lever of Open Innovation, mobilizing external talents (freelancers, startups, engineers, students) to co-create, test, and improve solutions.
It helps accelerate innovation, strengthen technological agility, and promote product adoption through the opening of APIs, platforms, or source codes.
By animating this community through hackathons, developer portals, or open-source programs, the company fosters collective intelligence, attracts new talents, and creates a dynamic ecosystem around its technologies, reducing both costs and development time.
Corporate Venturing
Corporate Venturing is an Open Innovation lever that enables a company to invest in external startups to access their innovations, technologies, or new business models.
By mobilizing dedicated funds (CVC – Corporate Venture Capital), the company can finance, support, or co-develop strategic solutions without immediately internalizing them.
This approach fosters agility, cross-learning, and diversification.
Corporate venturing also helps detect disruptive innovations, accelerate digital transformation, and build bridges between startup and corporate cultures, while generating sustainable financial and strategic returns.
Innovation Culture Development
Innovation culture development is an essential Open Innovation lever aimed at embedding innovation into the organization’s DNA.
It involves raising awareness, training, and engaging all employees in new methods, technologies, and innovative mindsets.
Through workshops, learning expeditions, conferences, labs, or intrapreneurship programs, it nurtures curiosity, collaboration, and experimentation spirit.
This lever encourages openness, risk-taking, and collective creativity, transforming every employee into a change agent.
In doing so, it creates an environment conducive to the emergence and concrete implementation of new ideas.
Florent Youzan