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This book shows the patterns of the fuzzy front end of innovation and how it can be successfully managed. It features case studies of selected firms with successful practices in managing the fuzzy front end of innovation.

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This book shows the patterns of the fuzzy front end of innovation and how it can be managed successfully. Topics in this book cover traditional instruments and processes such as technology monitoring, market-oriented research management, lead-user developments, but also modern approaches such as frontloading, user community-driven innovation, crowdsourcing, anthropological expeditions, technological listening posts in global R&D settings, cross-industry innovation processes, open innovation, and IP cycle management. Contributions are based on latest research and cases studies on this new paradigm. The authors investigate this phenomenon, linking the practice of the early innovation phase to the established body of innovation research. Conceptional articles complement case studies to provide the reader with insight on managing the fuzzy front end of innovation. Lessons learned with success factors and checklists complement each chapter.

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Conceptual Part: Managing the Unmanageable: The Fuzzy Front End of Innovation.- Structuring the Front End of Innovation.- Integrating Customers at the Front End of Innovation.- Out of Bounds: Cross-Industry Innovation Based on Analogies.- Trend Scanning, Scouting and Foresight Techniques.- Crowdsourcing as an Innovation Tool.- Revolutionizing the Business Model.- Managing the Intellectual Property Portfolio.- Applying Cross-Industry Networks in the Early Innovation Phase.- Dancing with Ambiguity: Causality Behavior, Design Thinking, and Triple-Loop-Learning.- Leveraging Creativity.- A Design Perspective on Sustainable Innovation.- Practical Cases: 3M: Beyond the 15% Rule.- ABB: Integrating the Customer.- Bayer: Strategic Management of the Early Innovation Phase.- BGW: Partnering the Outside-in Process - The Expert Innovation Journey.- Emporia: The Merits of Online Idea Competitions.- Evonik Industries - Managing Open Innovation.- Case: Google Ventures.- Idea Generation in the Consumer Business at Henkel.- Crowdsourcing - How Social Media and the Wisdom of the Crowd Change Future Companies.- Building a Bridge from Research to the Market: IBM´s Industry Solutions Labs.- The MINI Countryman: Successful Management of the Early Stage in a Cooperative Product Development Environment.- Controlling the Early Innovation Phase at Autoneum.- SAP: Bringing Economic Viability to the Front End of Innovation.- Sprint Radar: Community-Based Trend Identification.- Landis+Gyr: Designing and Analyzing Business Models in Value Networks.- voestalpine Anarbeitung: Commercialization Framework for Technology Development Projects.- Volkswagen: Open Foresight at the Front End of Research Innovation.- Fuzzy Front End of Innovation: Quo Vadis?

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