what is crowdsourcing, advantages and disadvantages
It can be seen as the process that allows a company to work with many people, to perform services or to generate ideas or content. Crowdsourcing is a way for companies to outsource work to a large group of people in the form of small tasks; it can also be useful as a means of gathering opinions and information.
When a company engages in crowdsourcing, it outsources internal work processes. It is therefore an independent form of division of labour. This is not the outsourcing of production (classic outsourcing), but business processes such as the collection of ideas for new products.
Crowdsourcing, which "taps" into the behavior, know-how and attitudes of many people, has not only revolutionized market research, but has also offered many benefits.
But we might wonder if crowdsourcing is a form of Open Innovation
Crowdsourcing can be understood as a general term . For example, it includes the anonymous use of mobile phone data, which can be used, for example, to analyze road traffic. Open innovation mainly refers to the involvement of the outside world in innovation processes in order to increase their potential.
These are the benefits of crowdsourcing.
Efficiency, cost savings and many other benefits of crowdsourcing generate interest in the new way of working. The following list will give you an idea of the full range of important benefits.
Market research is essential in all phases of the life cycle of a product or technology. If you use open innovation for this purpose, you get valuable input from the masses. Digital crowdsourcing platforms ensure that people can work on your project anywhere, anytime. An important plus!
If you have people working for you, you usually pay a lot of money. But when people get together digitally, the cost is much lower. And if you can motivate your target group in the right way, you can minimize the financial, time and organizational strain.
Open innovation projects create attention, and potential customers' attention is worth cash. In the process, the attention span lasts longer than a few seconds, as with traditional advertising. Participants become intensely involved with the brand, a product or an idea. It goes without saying that this can have a positive effect on future purchasing decisions.
Along the way, companies also collect valuable data from a valuable target group that they can contact in the future. Open innovation is therefore also a marketing measure.
If a company manages to inspire people with its innovation as part of its crowdsourcing project, participants can quickly become brand ambassadors.
Example: an outdoor company supplies 100 new types of functional shirts for a product test. Product testers are then out and about and act as brand ambassadors along the way.
Open innovation can also be used for employee scouting. Or communicated openly, offering an invitation to a job interview as a reward for attending. Or unspoken, actively turning to particularly qualified feedback providers.
Used correctly, Open Innovation offers almost nothing but benefits, as experience has shown. No wonder big companies like Daimler have been using this method for years.
But aren't there any drawbacks to crowdsourcing? Perhaps we should rather talk about risks. Below we list three dangers.
Open innovation platforms can minimize the risk of project manipulation because they rely on skilled communities. Otherwise, it is quite possible that competitors will negatively influence your innovation project by providing false feedback.
So, for example, if you ask for opinions on a certain product on your Facebook channel or even get people to vote, this approach is relatively easy to manipulate.
If your idea or product that you want to present to the crowd is only apparently innovative, you run the risk of losing your image. The same applies to non-professional project management: crowdsourcing cannot be planned one hundred percent, but you should be prepared for all conceivable cases. With an expert partner by your side, you minimize this risk.
No one likes to be convinced of their area of responsibility. Companies should therefore ensure that they actively involve people responsible for development processes in open innovation projects. Otherwise, they may feel threatened.
Ercole Palmeri
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