R&D has not typically reported on the process they use to generate new innovative ideas, but more often the results. Prior to the advent of the Open Innovation as a business activity R&D had no reason to report on the amount of external collaborations or external partner’s contributions to research outputs. Why would they; collaboration and external sourcing (aka., Open Innovation) was just a process for achieving innovation.

The lack of clear reporting and communication of external networks has led to the belief that R&D has not engaged in enough open innovation. To remain successful R&D groups should define clear measure about their open innovation activities. This can prevent the inefficiencies of having open innovation group duplicate efforts and ensure that R&D has correctly represented both their internal and external projects.

The bottom line for R&D managers is that the measures that indicate effective effort and success evolve over time. R&D groups must react to the changing metrics that are the result of corporate adoption of the Open Innovation paradigm.