Alliances, Open Innovation and Outside-in Management

Market-driven firms adopt an outside-in management that goes far beyond a simple observation of competitors and understanding of customers’ needs, in order to grasp new market opportunities. In this sense, strategic alliances have become increasingly important to the firms’ external knowledge access and innovation; firms enter into global networks to share both knowledge and costs and to increase their innovativeness. In this way, as shown in the Philips case, being open to the outside, market-driven firms expand their innovation potential and open innovation becomes a valuable strategy to improve the firm’s competitiveness.