“OPEN INNOVAT ION IS NOT AN ABSTRACT ACADEMIC CONCEPT.
IN FACT, AT ITS CORE, IT IS COMMON SENSE” JEFF BELLAIRS
Are South African SMEs Interested in Open Innovation?
As part of an exploratory study, the appetite for and use of Open Innovation were assessed within a survey to get a better understanding of the current Open Innovation landscape within South Africa. The study was conducted under SMEs who belong to business groups on the social media platform LinkedIn. The survey results provided interesting insights into a topic which is not well researched within South Africa. The survey cannot statistically be considered to be representative of all SMEs within South Africa due to the convenience sampling method utilised, yet still provides noteworthy views into Open Innovation in South African SMEs given the selected sample.
The survey was sent out to a total of 531 people who belong to the following business networking groups on LinkedIn, with number of invites in brackets: • Pretoria Business Club (100) • South African Small Medium Enterprises Federation (169) • Cape Town Business Club (107) • Johannesburg Business Club (78) • Durban Business Club (77)
A total of 108 responses were received over a two month period, and after filtering for South African SMEs, 85 could be used for analysis. 72% of the respondents indicated their organisations to comprise of between one and ten employees. 77% were owners and 28% of the participating companies have been in operation for longer than ten years. 81% of companies in the survey indicated that they do not have a separate line item in their budget for innovation, and 68 % said
The Innovation Journal
that they do not have a formalised innovation process. 87% of companies still however rated themselves to be innovative, indicating an inclination towards innovation, even though it may not be a formalised practice.
Participants showed a strong tendency
towards product innovation as the focus area in the coming 12 months, with innovation in the way they perform branding and marketing also being rated highly (table 1).
81% of participants agreed strongly with the statement more than ever before, SMEs and individuals can be as innovative as large companies. This shows a very positive outlook from participants in their innovation capabilities and their ability to compete against larger organisations when it comes to innovation. When asked about Open Innovation and providing participants with a definition of what Open Innovation is, organisations responded that they were not very confident in their knowledge of the topic, with almost 13% disagreeing strongly.
Table 1: Innovation types to focus on in the next 12 months
Business Model Product Process
Market and channel Strategy
Customer experience Service
Brand and marketing None
37% 64% 34% 42% 32% 40% 41% 51% 1%
September 2012 | Management Today 71
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