Samsung Electronics Open Innovation Research

For High-tech companies in the face of complex and volatile market demand,and also fast evolution of new technologies,there is a need for continuous technological innovation in order to consolidate the existing market position or to open up new markets.Therefore,a variety of technological innovation models has emerged in the high-tech industry.Among them,open innovation paradigm has become a new trend,practiced by more and more enterprises.Especially technology iteration speed is increasingly accelerated,high R&D cost,risk of uncertainty in high-tech industry,open innovation is the general trend.Internationally renowned companies,such as Samsung Electronics,CISCO,IBM,P&G etc are all open innovation active promoters and practitioners.After engaging on open innovation promotion for several years at one of Samsung Electronics China R&D branches,I observed that,on the one hand,Samsung Electronics has rich practical experience in open innovation,with fruitful achivements,thus accumulated unique competitiveness.On the other hand,new development trend of open innovation,such as user innovation,open innovation platform combining with users,tech resources,idea generators,required companies,are not closely adapted,which maybe one of the main causes of Samsung's recent market recession in some key areas.Thus,it's quite meaningful to research on Samsung Electronics open innovation.This thesis takes this as the research topic,in order to figure out its open innovation development course,main motivations,major modes,operation mechanism,and then try to solve two aspects of questions put forwarded.On the one hand,summrizes Samsung Electronics' limitaions and short comings in open innovation,then to propose improvement solutions based on root cause analysis.On the other hand,tries proposing insights and references of Samsung Electronics' open innovation for China local enterprises which are in different developing phases but still in early developing stages of innovation,somewhat similar to the situation that Samsung Electronics once had been in.This thesis mainly consists of the bellowing seven chapters:Chapter 1 introduces research background and purpose,and major research methodologies and considerations.Chapter 2 reviews theory of innovation,from traditional closed innovation,to open innovation theory,including definition,features,principles comparison and open innovation stakeholders.Also summarizes abroad/domestic research topics of open innovation.Chapter 3 discusses Samsung Electronics open innovation developing course,motivation,operation mode,and achievements obtained,to find out the innovation motivations including support main biz development,exploring new biz field,enhancing technology ability,enhancing industrial position,lower down cost,and entering new market etc.Chapter 4 introduces Samsung Electronics' open innovation operation mechanism with corperate-level supported open innovation orgnizations among its headquarter and overseas R&D centers,for different kinds of innovation goals.And the main modes of its open innovation including technology acquiring,investment,R&D collabration etc,also with elabration by detail cases of each mode.Chapter 5 points out Samsung Electronics' open innovation issues and analyzes its root causes,for the phenomenon of current decline in the main business area such as mobile phone.Through benchmarking analysis of other leading enterprises'successful experience,proposed several future development solutions,including introduction of user innovation;building open innovation platform for company itself,customers,tech providers,and tech requirers;integration of Samsung Electronics'internal R&D organizations,etc.Chapter 6 summarizs Samsung Electronics' open innovation experience as a reference to domestic high-tech enterprises.This paper finds that the key success factors of Samsung Electronics'open innovation:firstly,is dynamically selecting appropriate open innovation mode according to company's position,environment,technology and industry maturity.Secondly,is to make full utilization of external resources,continue absorbing in order to improve its own innovation ability.Pointed out that open innovation should be setted as an important strategy to promote,adhering to enhance self innovation ability utilizing open cooperation,with flexibly used open innovation model.From the perspective of open innovation purpose,starting time,operation mechanism and mode selection to discover the insights of Samsung Electronics'open innovation practice to China domestic enterprises.Chapter 7 briefly summarizes main research contents,conclusions and limitations of this thesis.