2018 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 269-274
Open innovation and open R&PD (research and product development) have been popular in recent literatures and practical business worlds, especially high-tech industry. Yet, it is still to be discussed in the healthcare industry that to what extent firms should open and with whom they should collaborate. Hence, the paper addresses the issue of an innovative healthcare-related product development to explore the characteristics of “openness” of open innovation and the role of “users.” In general, a firm hesitates to disclose the core technology due to appropriability, if it is in fact not so hard for competitors to imitate. On the other hand, the firm’s final product is elaborated with know-how input from externals, they need to collaborate with outsiders. In this case, that is doctors. We have interviewed to 3 peoples of Intuitive Surgical Inc. which designs, manufactures and sells the robotic assisted surgery “Da Vinci.” The company has been showing the top sales in the surgical robotics industry. We also survey the secondary materials. After analyzing the result form those data, we conclude that open innovation occurs owing to the closed collaboration with users and the depth of feedback after usage.
