The Starfish and the Spider:The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations

Take a look at the business world and you will find a revolution of sorts. The creativity of the masses is altering the way many established industries have functioned. Open-source platforms in the software domain, such as Apache and Linux are making behemoths like IBM and Sun systems sit up and take note. Royal Phillips Electronics—a world leader in healthcare, lifestyle and lighting—has adopted an open innovation strategy that capitalizes on the innovative power of various partnering companies as well as researchers. MiPlaza, part of Philips Research, is open to any individual in the world to walk in and access its world-class expertise, service and infrastructure.¹ Why are such industry giants looking at open innovation? After all, they have access to the best manpower, have a proven track record of excellent internal R&D and can strive to achieve economies of scale compared to none other in their respective fields. But here they are today adopting the world as their talent pool and acknowledging that the customer is not just an important part of the value chain but can also be co-creator in the process. Are the rules of the game changing here?