Driving Innovation by Collaborating with Others: Know Your Areas of Focus
Scouting for collaboration opportunities outside your company is a process that begins with defining and prioritizing the market's needs in a way that anyone unfamiliar with your business can understand.
Meeting the technical and product needs of customers can be very challenging, especially if R&D resources are constrained or you do not have the right in-house expertise to deliver a timely response. A faster technology solution to meeting customer requirements might be found outside of your company, in a university or federal laboratory, startup company, or research institution. Developing a collaborative relationship with the right technology partner that can scout feasible technology to address attractive market opportunities is a concept worth exploring.
Scouting for opportunities outside your company is a process that begins with defining and prioritizing the market’s needs in a way that any research institute, university, or startup laboratory—unfamiliar with your business—can understand and offer potential solutions. These needs can be grouped into what I refer to as focus areas.