To design an innovative business concept, it is necessary to develop personal competencies, including personal leadership, a network of acquaintances, research capacities, creativity, development skills, and an entrepreneurial spirit.
"Have crazy ideas and develop them, that's the only way you can be innovative. Free yourself from the burden of stereotypes about innovation. Innovation is not just research and development activities, it is not coming up with crazy ideas, it does not happen only in the field of technology, it does not have to be expensive and it is not intended exclusively for large companies," said Tom Spanjaard , a lecturer in innovation management and marketing at the Dutch Avans University and an expert in developing innovative capabilities in student and technical teams and small, medium and large business organizations, to VERN's students.
Spanjaard was a guest at VERN' as part of the VERN' Forum, during his stay in Zagreb, where he was one of the speakers at the international conference on corporate innovation and entrepreneurship in organizations.
In a lecture entitled " Open Innovation: an innovative startup idea in 60 minutes" , he explained to our students the basic difference between a closed innovation system and an open innovation system, the development of which needs to be encouraged. The innovation process, Spanjaard pointed out, consists of four steps: idea development, assessment, product development and commercialization. In this process, a closed innovation system is completely focused on internal resources, which actually narrows its room for maneuver in designing innovations.
On the other hand, the open innovation system is based on the assumptions that: "not all great ideas have to come from within, an organization does not have all the smartest people in the world, research and development conducted by others can be useful, an organization cannot always know what the market needs, external parties may be more capable of developing for the organization, users can also participate in development, sales sometimes need to be left to others, etc."
He explained how students in his course collaborate with the economy based on these assumptions, with some of the largest international companies such as Shell, MAN, KLM, SAP, MERCK and many others.
"We encourage students to develop ideas and present them to these companies, as this increases their opportunities to build their careers there," he pointed out.
He added that in order to design an innovative business concept, it is necessary to develop personal competencies, namely personal leadership, network of acquaintances, research capacities, creativity, development skills and entrepreneurial spirit.
He pointed out that they are trying to encourage the development of these skills and attitudes in their students, including through an international workshop to which foreign students can also apply, and he also extended an invitation to VERN's students. He also recommended to the students that in order to develop innovative skills, it is necessary to participate in innovation challenges and use the gamification method.
