[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Hwang Du-yeol] Recently, the number of companies adopting 'open innovation,' which involves introducing technology and information from outside while sharing internal resources externally to create new products or services, is increasing.
This approach is interpreted as an open innovation strategy, but most local companies are unfamiliar even with the concept, indicating an urgent need for awareness improvement.
On the 6th, the Busan Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced the results of the 'Survey on Awareness and Utilization of Open Innovation among Busan Companies,' targeting the top 500 companies by regional sales.
According to the survey, among 292 respondent companies, 259 companies, accounting for 88.7% of the total, answered that they had no knowledge of open innovation at all.
Among the 33 companies that said they were somewhat aware, 23 were at a basic level, knowing only the concept, while only 10 companies responded that they knew innovation cases or types or specific utilization methods, representing a very small minority.
Due to the low awareness of open innovation, very few companies were actually utilizing it.
Only 3.8% of the surveyed companies responded that they are currently using open innovation or have plans to use it in the future, while the remaining 96.2% had no plans to utilize it at all.
When asked why they had no plans to utilize it, 49.0% of companies answered that they had 'no interest at all,' and 13.5% cited 'distrust in its effectiveness,' indicating that raising corporate awareness of open innovation is urgent.
Regarding the conditions for utilizing open innovation in Busan, among the 292 respondent companies, 72 gave negative responses, about four times more than the 20 companies that gave positive responses.
According to these survey results, active efforts at the regional level to create favorable conditions for open innovation are necessary.
Companies that responded negatively cited the concentration of companies and technology in the metropolitan area (36.7%), lack of information (20.0%), and limitations in workforce supply (16.7%) as the main reasons.
The most preferred method of open innovation among local companies was collaboration with large companies, chosen by 71.6% of all respondent companies.
This is because local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have many cooperative or transactional relationships with large companies, resulting in a high dependence on large companies in processes such as technology development and distribution.
Interest in open innovation with external research institutions, ventures/startups, and universities was relatively low.
A representative from the Busan Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Corporate Trend Analysis Center said, “Recently, many companies are creating successful open innovation cases through collaboration with startups. Local companies also need to actively promote open innovation with collaboration partners such as startups and universities for innovative growth.”
The representative added, “To this end, regional support such as expanding the government-industry-academia cooperation model should also be carried out simultaneously.”
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