Open Innovation That Actually Scales | Vibha Gaba, Benjamin N. Haddad, Giacomo Silvestri

Why It Matters

Embedding open innovation as a governed, production‑grade function turns sporadic collaborations into sustainable growth engines, essential for companies facing accelerating digital and AI disruption.

Key Takeaways

• Open innovation now integral, not separate from internal R&D
• Scaling fails mainly at integration with core business processes
• Governance, metrics, and disciplined “factory” models drive successful outcomes
• Energy, tech, and consumer firms all adopt varied open‑innovation models
• Corporate venture, accelerators, and AI refineries turn ideas into production

Summary

The panel, featuring ENI’s Jakub Silvestri, Accenture’s Benjamin Haddad, and INSEAD professor Vibha Gaba, explored why open innovation must evolve from a peripheral experiment to a scalable, core capability for modern enterprises. They framed open innovation as the new default R&D model, emphasizing that ideas now flow across corporate borders, universities, startups, and even competitors.

Key insights highlighted a persistent bottleneck: most initiatives stall when firms attempt to embed external solutions into their core operating units. A live poll confirmed that integration, governance, and performance measurement are the top challenges, while pilot‑stage drop‑outs remain a minority. The speakers described a shift toward disciplined “factory” approaches—such as Accenture’s AI refinery and ENI’s dual‑innovation model—that treat every external partnership as a production‑grade asset rather than a one‑off experiment.

Notable quotes underscored this maturity. Silvestri asserted, “Innovation is open innovation; we cannot succeed without it,” while Haddad warned that earlier “open‑door parties” often led to a “death valley” where proofs of concept vanished. Their discussion illustrated how structured governance, clear metrics, and a venture‑client mindset transform fleeting collaborations into repeatable value streams.

The implication for business leaders is clear: to reap the speed, risk‑sharing, and market intelligence promised by open innovation, firms must institutionalize it with robust governance, integrate outcomes into core processes, and adopt factory‑like models that turn startup ideas into scalable solutions. Those that do will accelerate product cycles and protect competitive advantage in an era of rapid AI and digital disruption.

Original Description

TECH TALK X, 25 February 2025, 12.00 PM CET by https://digital.insead.edu

Open innovation is now a standard part of corporate strategy, yet making it deliver results at scale remains a challenge. In this TECH TALK, Giacomo Silvestri (ENI) shares how open innovation works in practice in a large, asset-heavy and regulated organization, including when to push forward, pause or stop. He is joined by Benjamin N. Haddad (Accenture), who brings a cross-industry perspective on why many initiatives stall at the pilot stage and how organisations can refocus on outcomes. Moderated by Vibha Gaba, The Berghmans Lhoist Chaired Professor of Entrepreneurial Leadership at INSEAD, the discussion moves beyond idea sourcing to focus on what success looks like, how to build credible pathways from incubation to scale and how to manage the interface between open innovation initiatives and the core business.

Why watch:

• Understand why many open innovation efforts fail to scale

• Learn how organisations make clearer choices, including mandate clarity, success metrics, decision rights and governance that preserves speed while maintaining accountability.

• Explore how AI can help and where it doesn’t.

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