Crowdsourcing vs. Technology Scouting in a B2B setting

Unrestricted © Siemens AG 2014. All rights reserved
Crowdsourcing vs. Technology Scouting
in a B2B setting
Dr. Michael Heiss
Siemens Corporate Technology | March 2014

March 2014 Corporate Technology Unrestricted © Siemens AG 2014. All rights reserved
Crowdsourcing vs. Technology Scouting:
Two different approaches for technology sourcing
Technology Scouting: search for offeringsCrowdsourcing: let many people contribute
What is the difference?
Let many
people know
your needs
Receive many contributions
Visualization: many contributors (clouds) contribute to one goal (sun) Visualization: try to find the one who has skills you need
Search in
databases
and internet
Many technology offerings
written by yourself written by others

Two different approaches for technology sourcing
• “Technology scouting is a systematic
approach by companies whereby they
assign part of their staff or employ external
consultants to gather information in the
field of science and technology and
through which they facilitate or execute
technology sourcing.
Technology scouting is either directed at a specific technological
area or undirected, identifying relevant developments in
technological white spaces. Technology scouting relies on formal
and informal information sources, including the personal
networks of the scouts.”
(Source: Rohrbeck via
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_Scouting )
• “Crowdsourcing is the practice of obtaining
needed services, ideas, or content by
soliciting contributions from a large group
of people, and especially from an online
community, rather than from traditional
employees or suppliers.”
(Source Merriam Webster via
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing )
Examples:
• Co-Ideation, Idea Contests
• Call-for-Proposals
• Corporate Problem solving
Technology Scouting: search for offeringsCrowdsourcing: let many people contribute
Definitions
Let many
people know
your needs
Receive many contributions Search in
databases
and internet
Many technology offerings
written by yourself written by others

Do you want to be visible with your needs or not?
• See everybody without being visible• Be visible for everybody
Scouting: “good vision”Crowdsourcing: “good visibility”
Visibility
Visualization: be visible Visualization: have a good overview over all but be not visbile yourself

Would you like to decide who is contributing?
• Don’t call us, we call you.• Hope to receive the right submissions
Scouting: activeCrowdsourcing: passive
Control of submission stream
Visualization: wait and hope that an important technology is contributed Visualization: do not wait – if you identify a partner with an important technology, take it

Consider how much you want to disclose
when selecting the right open innovation approach
Overview over frequently used open innovation approaches
• Search field and company
are visible
• Pre-qualification for
participants possible but
complicated
• Search field and company
not visible
• Need to manage large
number of databases
Idea-Contests ScoutingE-Brokering
company
competitors
customers
end-customers
universities & research
startups & established
technology providers
experts
search
field
company
competitors
customers
experts
search
field
E-Broker
company
customers
experts
search
field
A B….A gets info from B
• E-broker sends request to a
propriatary (closed) list of
experts
• Anonymity and black-list
possible
Databases
& Search
Engines
competitors
Crowdsourcing Scouting

Conclusion
Scouting
E-Brokering & Innovation Portal
Idea Contests
Agenda
company
competitors
customers
end-customers
experts
search
field

Designs for emotional LED
solutions (Osram)
Disruptive ICT trends
Products & solutions for
urban markets and city de-
velopment (Siemens India)
Sustainable company and
portfolio ideas (Siemens)
Smart Grid Innovation
Contest (part I & II)
The effort for external idea contests is significantly
larger than for internal idea contests
2009 2010
Innovation
Jams
Internal
contests
External
contests
Business opportunities for
the "Future of Hubs"
(Siemens Mobility)
Anti-Piracy issues &
technical & legal
solutions
2011 2012
Future Business opportu-
nities for high-voltage
switchgears (E T HS)
Business opportunities for
"Future of Metals" (I MT)
2013
Data Driven Services

Example: Siemens Smart Grid Innovation Contest
The contribution quality is higher in a closed setting
Phase II: Call for Research Proposals,
for universities only, 10-12/2011
Phase I: Public Idea Contest,
for everybody, 4-6/2011
Submission &
social ranking
Evaluation
by Siemens
Jury
decision
Award
ceremony
(incl. MVC1))Rec. by
MVC1)
1) Rec. By MVC: Recommendation by Most Valuable Contributors, pre-evaluated by Core-Team
Abstract
submission
(Qualification)
Submission
of full
proposal
RTR2)
decision
Contracting
&
implementation
RTR2)
accept/
deny
2) RTR: Research Topic Responsible (from Siemens)
Topic cluster NDA Research Topic (confidential)
• All submissions
• All comments
• Crowd ranking (5 stars)
• Internal ranking (5 stars): public
• no internal comments!
Public: Selected Siemens experts:
Recruiting of participants: via social media (e.g. LinkedIn groups)
15 000 € (total)
+ Berlin trip
1 Mio. €
budget (total)
• Nothing, except the generic
topic cluster description
• no crowd ranking
• Abstract submission
• Full research proposal submission
• Internal comments
• Communication with submitter
• Decisions
Public & Peers:
RTR2)+Selected Siemens experts:
via SCOPUS all authors of scientific papers in the field were invited
• 100 countries
• 35 000 unique visitors
• 1 500 registered users
• 500 ideas
• 5 000 comments & evaluations
• 300 000 minutes on the site
• 40 countries
• 200 universities
• 400 registered users
• 172 abstracts submitted
• 25 accepted for full proposal
• 10 to be contracted
ParticipantsResults
Awareness & branding High quality research proposals
Top experts
VisibleProcess
IT platform from

Lessons Learned from the
Siemens Smart Grid Innovation Contest
Emotions Seismograph / Timeline

March 2014 Corporate Technology
The „stock market price“ of the project shows
how challenging an global external idea contest is
# Comments
1  Doubtfully at the beginning
2
 Too many proposals that were not in
Siemens business
 Loss of both power sponsors
3  Some interesting submitted ideas
4
 New confidentiality policy disrupted
plans and caused extra challenges for
the tool
5
 Definition of Research Topic Clusters
and Detailed Research Question
6
 The Award Ceremony in Berlin and the
community feeling hat was very positive
7  Technical issues behind the scene
8
 The contest was successfully launched
and immediate response was positive,
but quality of submissions at the
beginning not convincing
9
 Very high quality of submission;
due to the high number of submissions
high effort
10  Contracting on the way


Preparation Idea Contest Online
13.4-15.6.2011
Jury Preparation
21.7.2011
Topic
Definition for
CfP
CfP Online
4.10.-30.11.2011
1.4. 15.6. 21.7. 15.9. 4.10. 30.11. 14.12.
positive
negative
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Aggregated Emotions Seismograph / Timeline:
“estimated Return on Invest based on your own investment”
time
Award
Ceremony
Berlin
15.9.2011
Evaluation of
proposals
10
Research Topic Responsibles from BU
Core Team
1

Lessons Learned of the
Siemens Smart Grid Call-for-Proposals
Ownership
 Project needs to be fully adopted by the Business Unit –
Project Lead from Business Unit.
 Management support from CTO level required.
 A wide spread management support leads to robustness
against organizational changes.
 Early involvement of Product Managers.
Confidentiality
 The more concrete the search field description, leads to a
trade off between
 the more valuable the submissions
 the higher the risk of disclosing Siemens strategies.
 The higher the security level of the tool, the more expensive,
less flexible, more complex to handle.
 The quality of the submissions is higher if it is submitted
in a closed environment (not public) - at least in a highly
competitive search field.
Timing
 It is more important to align the contest with the Siemens
budget planning than with the academic year.
 First receive all the submissions before making accept/deny
decisions.
Recruiting of Submitters
 SCOPUS gave us access to all the
scientists who published in the search field.
Optimization
 Having a pre-qualification process ensures
that the Siemens Experts spend most of their
time with the best proposals and ensures that
only trusted submitters have access to the
more confidential information.
 Limiting the words and having a tool-enforced
structure helps to focus submitters answers –
helps to minimize Siemens effort for
evaluating.
 Explaining what type of proposals Siemens
wants and does not want helps to optimize
the expectation of the submitters and the
workload for Siemens.
 Very high usability is required for the web
tool both for submitters and backend
operations – End to end process/workflow
support.
backup

Conclusion
Scouting
E-Brokering and Innovation Portals
Idea Contests
Agenda
company
competitors
customers
experts
search
field
E-Broker

Companies
 ~ 15 challenges submitted with predominantly excellent results
 Efficient and market oriented approach to find leading edge technologies
Innovation
Seeker
Problem
Solvers
Huge Network of ~ 3 Mio Solvers
Large corporations, SMEs
Start-ups
Universities, R&D organizations
Consultants
Individual Experts
E-Brokers send the request
to a proprietary (closed) list of experts

End of March 2014 our Innovation Portal will go live:
focus on content – not on tools and traffic generation
Siemens Innovation Portal
A Siemens branded Innovation
Portal at the NineSigma’s
NineSights Managed Galleries
List of our needs
with a one-page description
for each of them
Be visible for potential
submitters as a real person
…
• A common market place for
new technologies
• a one-stop-shop
for solvers and seekers
including:

Conclusion
Scouting
E-Brokering and Innovation Portal
Idea Contests
Agenda
company
customers
experts
search
field
Databases
& Search
Engines
competitors

Lesson Learned from Technology Scouting:
the right balance of involvement is key for success
e + m
Probability of success
0% 10% 100%
0%
high
e + m + s
The aspired effort of the Manager m and the
Experts e in relation to the planned total effort of a
scouting project (including the effort of the Scout s)
20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Impact of the planned involvement of management and internal experts on the scouting success (=new
collaboration with the identified partner) under typical practical boundary conditions
If you plan to involve the
operative experts for more than
30%, the risk is high that they
will not do it.
In our setting a 10% involvement
has the highest success rate.
Source: A. Oertl, M. Heiss, IEEE ITMC 2014
If the project is completely done
in the operative unit, the risk is
high that the date to completion
is delayed or the scouting is not
done systematically (quality?).

Proprietary
Databases
Primary
source
Expected
outcome
Key
methodology
> 50 Mio docs (Scopus,
RDDS, IPAS-BUS)
 Access to publications
from reputable
universities, companies
 Patent database
Key-Experts,
Description of USP
More than 100 different databases are the source
Results are collected in the Scouting Platform
~ 35.000 experts (Enterprise
social media platform)
 Internal networks in
related field often
already exist with relevant
information
 Siemens Experts that
were not known can be
identified and informal
discussion held
Identification of use-cases
& Business Units contacts
TechnoWebMergeFlow
 Continuous screening
of changes in publicly
available sources
 High-end monitoring
technologies based on
semantic technologies
Emerging activities
>3GB docs p.d. (websites,
blogs, forums, rss feed.)
> 100 databases, >100.000
offerings (SBIR, EEN, etc.)
 Search term-based
screening of external
technology marketplaces
(huge number of very
recent offerings!)
 Business-driven
information gathering
(direct contact to target)
Technology offerings
Public
Databases
Scouting
Platform

An aggregated (multiple databases), dynamically
weighted, multiple keyword search increases speed
Siemens PDC-Method: self-developed Excel-PlugIn, data aggregation by mergeflow
Multiple
search keywords
and number of hits
List of Technology
Offerings
Aggregation of
different databases
Keyword occurrence
Ranking according to
keyword weights
Dynamic weights

Keyword search alone is not sufficient, you need also
methods to identify the „unknown unknowns“
News analysis (in general RSS-feeds) via mergeflow
Example:
connection graph of
companies that are
mentioned in the
same news
Other views:
tag clouds,
similar news,
geographical, peopl
e, technologies,
and others
The mergeflow tool
collects all specified
RSS-feeds (e.g. news)
or search-feeds from
the whole internet and
offers different views
on it

The Scouting Platform collects all cooperation
proposals and the corresponding evaluation (Intranet)
Siemens Scouting Platform: an extended, customized version of IdeaNet from Hyve AG
Action item tracing,
Status tracing
Visualization
of target organization
Peer comments
and enrichment
Corporate-wide
transparency
documentation of all
communication with
the target organizations
Filter options
Detailed evaluation
available

Conclusion
Scouting
E-Brokering and Innovation Portal
Idea Contests
Agenda

Conclusion of Challenges
• In a B2B setting you need to attract professionals to participate.
• Professionals usually prefer a closed setting like Call-for-Proposals or closed communities.
 The value of social media based crowd sourcing is higher for intranet or extranet
settings than for open internet settings.
• The balanced involvement of operative experts and management is key for successful scouting
projects.
 Do not try to plan an unrealistic involvement of them but only the minimal
required involvement for being successful and add value for them in every meeting.
• The effort to establish an own Innovation Portal is also for large enterprises undesirably high.
Lots of effort is spent for IT related issues like IT-security and usability and for attracting possible
submitters.
 Focus on the content and use a branded Innovation Portal at an established technology
market place.
Crowdsourcing / Idea Contests
Innovation Portals
Technology Scouting

March 2014 Corporate Technology
Dr. Michael Heiss
Principal Open Innovation and Scouting
Siemens AG
Corporate Technology
Technology and Innovation Management
Email: michael.heiss @ siemens.com
Phone & Mobile: +43-664-88 55 15 26
siemens.com/answers
Contact
Source: www.flickr.com/photos/michaelheiss (including photos from slides 2-5)

Crowdsourcing vs. Technology Scouting in a B2B setting

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