Christopher Schläffer

Enterprise Architecture in Innovation Implementation

A core challenge in technology-oriented innovation is the correct focus of innovation implementation in highly complex environments, including a fragmented value chain. This section presents a method that helps innovation departments steer innovation implementation in order to decrease timeto- market and improve the quality and alignment of the technology artifacts developed.

Tools for User-Driven Innovation at Deutsche Telekom Laboratories

Users are important actors in innovation projects: The market success of new products and services depends highly on addressing the right customer requirements without overloading them with too many new features and technologies (Lettl and Gemunden 2005; Mason and Harris 2005). Going beyond traditional market research and integrating customers intensively into the innovation process is an important measure of market-oriented innovation management (Ernst 2002; Iansiti and Clark 1994). Deutsche Telekom Laboratories reduces market uncertainties in new product and service projects by applying the concept of user-driven innovation. User-driven innovation is based on innovative customer research tools specifically tailored to four innovation phases: exploration (e.g., day-in-the-life visits), ideation (e.g., lead-user workshops), selection/execution (e.g., user clinics), and commercialization (e.g., field tests). Deutsche Telekom Laboratories applies a variety of these “intelligent”, user-driven innovation tools in order to guarantee a phase-specific, integrated customer orientation. This section gives a methodological overview and examples based on the case study of interactive mobile TV (IMTV).

Business (Lead) Customer Involvement in the Innovation Process

Increasing competition and the resulting shortening of product lifecycles give an advantage to those enterprises that focus their innovation efforts on early involvement with business customers. This section deals with the involvement of business customers in the innovation process at early stages, describes typical requirements for business customer involvement, and outlines the typical involvement of business customers in the innovation process used at Telekom Laboratories.

Venturing for Commercialization of R&D Results

In the current rapidly changing environment of the telecommunications industry – an environment that offers a multitude of prominent directions in technological and market development – it is essential to drive innovation and extend the portfolio of business areas. Deutsche Telekom Laboratories supports the creation of new business fields with a venturing approach that allows for external commercialization of R&D results. In collaboration with a network of external partners, R&D results are spun out, developed externally, and, if successful, spun back in.

Cross-over Application of Enterprise Architecture and Modularization in Telco R&D

This section describes how a cross-over application of enterprise architecture in telco R&D helps to cope with issues in the early innovation stages – complexity management in view of the choice of alternative technological paths and implementation uncertainty in view of distance of strategic and operational levels. Linking enterprise architecture concepts and early innovation stages, it builds on the modularization of R&D results.

Partnering for Research and Development within an Open Innovation Framework

The increasing stress of competition and technological change reduces the ratio of revenue expectation to internal development costs. As a consequence, more innovation work has to be accomplished for the same funds. Using the external world actively and strategically to enhance one’s own innovation potential provides a solution. An important element is a dedicated partnering concept involving public research institutions as well as industrial peer companies.

Options for Customer Integration in the Open Innovation Paradigm at Deutsche Telekom

The consistent application of the open innovation logic leads to the inclusion of the customer. Open innovation helps to open up company boundaries, promoting cooperation with and integration of external know-how brokers to meet the more exacting innovation ecosystem requirements. In addition to subsidiaries, suppliers, competitors, consultants, as well as private and public research institutions; first and foremost, the customer plays a decisive role (Eurostat 2007).

Integration of Academic Research into Innovation Projects: The Case of Collaboration with a University Research Institute

International academic institutions produce a rich pool of knowledge which is relevant for innovation processes. The challenge is to find an effective approach to make this knowledge accessible and usable on a larger scale. The structured approach to setting up cooperation between industry and academia described in this chapter helps transfer knowledge between those two parties, regardless of geographical distance.

Design Research in University-Industry Collaborative Innovation: Experiences and Perspectives

Design has been considered a driver of innovation for quite some time (Kelly 2003; Utterback et al. 2007; Center for Design Innovation 2007). Today, it is nothing new for many companies with leading innovation centers, such as Sony and Philips Research Labs, to have a design department. Design Research, however, is less widely practiced in innovation centers. The Design Research Lab within the Strategic Research-arm of Deutsche Telekom Laboratories acts as a partner driver in a university-industry collaborative research and innovation setting. Its subject matter, approaches, and methods are discussed in this section.

The Importance of Innovation Management at Deutsche Telekom – Technological Uncertainty and Open Innovation

“Europe’s wealth lies in the knowledge and ability of its people.” This sentence, from the 2007 Berlin Declaration to mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaties of Rome, not only highlighted the need for a European innovation policy, it also illustrated that globalization, open-access journals, and the Internet have ushered in a new era in the history of science. From the early 18th century, the major cycles in the history of science were shaped by France, then Germany, the United Kingdom, and finally the United States. However, individual centers in the East and West or entire regions such as Europe are increasingly becoming today’s pioneers. Consistent business innovation strategies – supported by a prudent innovation policy – are the key requirements for exploiting Europe’s wealth and strategically leveraging her people’s talents. Innovations in the 21st century are the result of complex conditions and dynamic processes. This requires adequate innovation management that focuses systematically on adding value. This rationalization and systematization of creativity and the spirit of invention is not contradictory. This is what Thomas Edison meant when he said genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.