You must have in mind their latent or implicit needs

Consultant with the firm Forrester Research, Navi Radjou has just completed a study on the way in which French companies practicing innovation in network. His Office is in the origin of a model which involves the collaboration of four separate actors: the inventor, the broker, financier and the transformer. The model developed by Forrester Research assumes that firms are collaborating through networks of innovation with other partner companies. They embrace, their strategy and depending on the circumstances and the projects, the role of the inventor, the transformer, the broker or the financial.

It can be said that our country adopt the model of innovation in network

Yes, but it is very progressive. I particularly studied France Telecom and CNP Assurances, two examples of companies that open outwards. In France Telecom, it was thus decided that 30 of inventions should now come from other centres of research partners. The operator also establishes partnerships with other companies, for example with Microsoft and Motorola, and invests in a startup. But, beside these examples, French companies are rather in favour of a hybrid model, the R & D remaining in the centre of the system with an attempt to gradually opening to the outside.

How to accelerate this change

The collaborative model of co-development and co-marketing is based on the collaboration of four different actors: the inventor, the broker, financier and the transformer. At the time, this requires new skills should be taught in schools of engineers or trade. Paris Dauphine has thus announced a curriculum for the management of the "clusters", including competitiveness clusters ("Les Echos" from September 12). It is a good start, but should go further and address the international dimension. In France, it forms the engineers to be of the "inventors", while the management of a network involves skills of "broker". With the Internet, consumers are more savvy and are also more passive. The nature of innovation becomes more complex and requires multidisciplinary skills that no company can own in full.

You therefore push for rapprochement between the R & D and marketing of the company

No, because use marketing to that broker internal knowledge, capable of removing relevant information of the market, is not necessarily an efficient system. I think rather than R & D needs to develop a sectoral watch. It should begin to play the role of "internal" network transformer Instead of throwing his inventions over the wall to the commercial, R & D must proactively build "business case" for any new invention of rupture and knowledge communicate to the business units. It can also play a role of broker by "through knowledge" between various business units, which tend to innovate in silos. For example, R & D of Whirlpool uses "global knowledge brokering" processes their technical knowledge and business through the regional units. Thus, based on an invention from his team of R & D in India, Whirlpool has introduced in the Mexican market a refrigerator with a pedestal. This offers additional storage at the bottom, but also communicates the status of "prestige" due to its height!

But how to approach the breakthrough innovation that is not the subject of an application for users

This is why I am not innovation model "led" by the user, yet very fashionable, but rather "focused" on users. You must have in mind their latent or implicit needs. Many companies are now call for sociologists, or even to specialists of the cultural codes. It must then test new concepts to the fringe of the consumers the most informed without concern for the market. For incremental innovations, when it is to improve packaging, for example, is obviously different, and can seek the advice of users as recently Danone for its new cream dessert Danette. Companies must adopt different postures on the desired innovations.