How to innovate?

Innovation starts with creativity, new ideas, or new combinations of ideas. Discovering something new or creating a new idea on your own to improve an existing product is quite possible, but smart innovation normally requires that you don't work alone. Often the opinion or help of others is decisive. For example, if Steve Jobs did not have Steve Wozniak as a friend, the Mac and iPhone would probably never have existed.

Different sets of eyes are involved in the entire innovation process (testing, research, ...). Together, you acquire more knowledge, share development costs, and reduce business risks.

Working together is key. But with whom? And who can help?

Innovating together with other companies

Find Partners via local networks

Networking meetings are excellent opportunities to find potential partners. Enquire with the professional associations that are active in your area, take part in specific seminars and look on the internet for online communities that share projects, knowledge, and experiences.

• In Brussels, some promising sectors are given "extra advantages":  they are joined in so-called "clusters" that try to promote the growth, innovation, and internationalization of its members. To this end, they launch many actions (group booths at fairs, seminars, ...)
  • centresThe cluster software.brussels
  • The cluster play.brussels. 
  • The cluster lifetech.brussels
  • The cluster circlemade.brussels
  • The cluster ecobuild.brussels
  • The cluster Hospitality.brussels
     
• Frequently, you can contact universities, collective research centers, and other educational institutions. Each university offers a distinct service (known as "interfaces") that aims to foster collaboration with businesses. If you are looking to develop a particular new technology, this service connects you with researchers or students who can assist you with their expertise and skills.

International cooperation

Through cooperation with foreign companies, you can gain access to new knowledge, ideas, and technologies that are not readily available in your native country. Through cooperation with foreign companies, insight can also be gained into how markets function in a foreign country, for example, as well as which needs consumers have and what product requirements apply there. This can also lead to an impetus for product enhancements and innovations to serve new markets. Moreover, the door is already open for exporting, seeing that you have obtained access to foreign networks.

The following international networks can help you with this:

• Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs: this European network offers young or prospective entrepreneurs the opportunity to learn from an experienced entrepreneur in another EU country on how to start a business and run it successfully. Afterward, this exchange very often leads to permanent cooperation. In Brssels, hub.brussels is the national focal point for this program.
• Enterprise Europe Network: this network helps companies find technological, strategic, or commercial business partners in 63 countries part of the Enterprise Europe Network. The network consists of an extensive database of business proposals from entrepreneurs who are looking for a partner, and it also organizes numerous B2B contact days abroad. Through this network, you remain perfectly aware of new technological developments or you can promote your own technology internationally.

Innovate through crowdsourcing and co-creation

The inspiration for new ideas or product innovation does not have to come from peers or other companies. Organizations are increasingly relying on the "crowd", or the public, to bring innovation faster, better, and cheaper. Through online communities and digital platforms, companies present problems to a large group of people (customers, suppliers, the general public, ...). The answers they receive enable them to develop new products and services, make product improvements or find working solutions.

The value of crowdsourcing goes beyond cost savings. By involving a diverse group of people, it leads to the emergence of unexpected creativity, all at a fraction of the traditional R&D costs.

Here is a list of crowdsourcing platforms and examples of successful crowdsourcing projects