In his 2003 book, Open Innovation, Henry Chesbrough argues that businesses must adopt a model of innovation that looks both outside of its own four walls for ideas, as well as licenses its home-grown but unused intellectual property to others. In his new work, Open Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation Landscape (Harvard Business School Press, 2006), Chesbrough takes this topic a step further.
The author, a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, says that a firm's business model itself has to "become more open for the firm to open up its innovation process effectively."
The front end of the book examines the "whys" behind Chesbrough's push for open business models and explores the barriers to companies' embrace of the idea.
Despite operating in very unlike industries, "these very different journeys had some common elements that are likely to arise in thinking through your own transformation of your business model," he notes.
It is not necessary to have read Open Innovation to appreciate the ideas he presents in his latest effort.
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