Open Innovation - Resilience Over Prediction

In previous articles, I addressed the importance of open innovation for the future of a company. I have also highlighted the difference between internal innovation processes and the need to look externally once those internal processes have been fully exploited.

As discussed, open innovation starts with a fundamental understanding and internalization: no organization can do everything by itself. External collaboration becomes essential, especially as the world becomes more digital, more complex, and more data-driven.

Henry Chesbrough famously described this evolution, which he called open innovation, over 20 years ago in his book on the topic. His work focused heavily on the actions companies take. But in practice, openness runs deeper - it's a mindset shift, not just a set of actions. No matter what actions you take; hackathons, partnerships, open calls for ideas, if your organization doesn’t genuinely believe that they can learn from the outside world just as much as it contributes, it will never truly be open.

In this article, I want to address a common misconception: that open innovation can prevent disruption by helping a company see it coming.

Let’s be honest - It won’t. You can never fully prevent disruption, and it’s incredibly difficult to identify it in advance, especially when it comes from outside your own industry.

Some examples of this include:

• BlackBerry and Apple - BlackBerry failed to recognize Apple’s iPhone as a serious threat, believing Apple couldn’t compete in the smartphone market they dominated. By the time they responded, with a weak imitation, it was too late. The disruption had already taken hold.

• Netflix and Blockbuster - Blockbuster failed to pivot to streaming early enough and couldn’t catch up once it tried.

Disruption can be hard to spot even when it originates internally. Take Kodak, for example: the company actually invented the digital camera, but leadership chose to downplay it, fearing it would cannibalize their profitable film business. That hesitation sealed their fate.

Open innovation is not about creating a radar that will magically alert you when disruption is near. It’s about training your organization to think differently, to become more agile, and to challenge its own assumptions continuously. By doing so, your organization may be better positioned to identify early signals, at least within your own sector, and respond more effectively. It may not prevent disruption, but it could buy you more time to adapt.

The real value of open innovation is that it builds your organization like a muscle, helping it face disruption when it does arrive - and it will.

Imagine what might have happened:

• If BlackBerry had been ready to launch its own touchscreen smartphone instead of trying to defend the keyboard?

• If Blockbuster had been open to going digital sooner, possibly partnering with or even acquiring Netflix?

• If Kodak had embraced digital photography and reinvented its business model?

Now let’s consider a company that did respond well to disruption: Microsoft. Under Satya Nadella’s leadership, Microsoft successfully shifted from a Windows-centric software company to a cloud-first organization. Instead of clinging to legacy products, they embraced open-source communities, partnered with competitors, and restructured their strategy around the future, not the past. This is a powerful example of how mindset, openness, and continuous transformation can help a large corporation face and even benefit from disruption.

Companies must stop comparing themselves to competitors with the sole intent of mimicking them. That path makes you a follower, not a leader. Instead, strategy should be based on understanding where the market is heading and why, and on seeking solutions, whether from inside or outside your sector, that meet customers’ real, evolving needs.

Don’t get me wrong, being open to the outside world can absolutely help overcome obvious challenges. But it will not protect you from disruptions that come from entirely unexpected places.

It’s like martial arts: you don’t train to avoid every fight - you train to react better when the fight comes.

If your organization keeps challenging itself, experimenting, and learning, you won’t just build better products, you’ll also be much better prepared for the day when real disruption knocks on your door.

Open innovation isn’t a guarantee against disruption, but it’s the best preparation you can have. The companies that survive, and thrive, won’t be the ones that saw disruption coming, but the ones trained to respond with agility, humility, and openness. So train now - because the fight will eventually come.