The BV Cluster makes the Front‐end of Network Centric Innovation more effective and efficient.
Today we live in the “information society”. There is a tremendous rise of professional and
social networks inside and outside companies opening up new sources and opportunities
for sharing content and experience. The spread of know‐how and information occurs at
an ever increasing speed through the Internet and other global IT/media platforms. New
technologies and inventions become almost instantaneously available to an increasing
number of organizations and people thereby shortening product life cycles. At the same
time competing on global markets with rapidly changing consumer preferences puts a
high pressure on organizations to differentiate from each other by fast new technology‐
/product introductions. As a result R&D costs go through the roof while the demand for highly specialized know‐how and
expertise is high.
In this highly complex environment for technology/product developments new organizational and partnering concepts are
emerging. They go under the umbrella of “Open innovation” (also called Network Centric Innovation) in which
cooperation is pursued between all kind of organizations (OEM’s/SME’s/know‐institutions) tapping all available resources,
competences and creativity in the network. This is in contrast to “Closed Innovation” in which a company relies primarily
on its own internal R&D resources to develop new technologies and innovations.
This paradigm shift from firm centric (“closed”, within one company) to Network Centric Innovation (“open”, in networks)
is now widely recognized in the industry and in society at large.
However, managing Network Centric Innovation becomes increasingly complex. The boundaries of organizations become
diffuse, requiring new governance concepts, while working in network environments also requires a cultural
transformation of employees who have to cope with idea’s and innovations that are “not invented here” and have to adapt
to new ways of working and cooperating.
Organizational aspects of innovation in networks such as the generation, flow and the securing of developed know‐how in
and by the network, the organization of cross boundary processes and workflows, allocation of roles and tasks over
participating partners/individuals, synchronization of activities over the network have to be handled.
At the same time social/cultural dimensions of network operations must be addressed: self‐organization as a leading
principle, bridging the value gap between the network partners, reinforcing interactions between individuals in the
network and forming cross‐organizational & cross‐functional teams.
Research indicated that approx. 25% of the innovation success by Dutch organizations can be attributed to R&D
investments but that 75 % must be attributed to managing and organizing the socio/cultural aspects.
To address these key‐elements of Network‐Centric Innovation, a 2001 start‐up technology company operating in a
network environment developed a “Collaborative Network Portal (CNP)” concept. The CNP was dedicated to support
particularly managing of the “front‐end” of the R&D process, which is characterized by uncertainty, complexity and
flexibility. The approach of this CNP concept was simple, ingenious and unique:
1. The innovation process is taken as leading principle for treating the network ‐ on a meta level ‐ as one (1)
organizational entity, providing guidance to realizing shared objectives.
2. The CNP web‐based architecture supports the application of all kind of IT toolsets to capture data/information/
knowledge, and facilitates productive communication/interaction between participants. It reinforces cross boundary
(organization/function) team work and makes network‐related governance principles work.
This CNP concept is ideally suited to support the R&D front‐end process in network centric innovation. This creates the
opportunity for the BV Cluster to bring this new and unique approach to the “open innovation” market.
The BV Cluster has organized itself as a network and brings forward the required competences and resources to help
organizations and experts participating in Network Centric Innovation through a phased approach to
• Support the Network Governance build up to ensure clear roles & responsibilities, seamless coordination of
knowledge exchange, competencies & resources.
• Co‐develop Knowledge Management facilitating the generation, codification, use and distribution of knowledge in
the network.
• Support IP Rights Management to enable creators to control the use of their innovation and derivatives.
• Facilitate “self organization” addressing Cultural Transformation ensuring strong cross organizational team work
with quality communication/interaction between knowledge workers and aligned patterns of behavior.
The BV Cluster implementation methodology (The Guide™) ensures that the enabling CNP architecture will be “up and
running” in max. 10 weeks.
www.bvcluster.com henk.vdheide@bvcluster.com joep.wijman@bvcluster.com