21th of August 2024
by Cambra de Comerç de Barcelona (Barcelona Chamber of Commerce)
Sustainability, from a business innovation perspective, is certainly an exciting context for creativity. However, while 90% of business leaders think sustainability is important, only 60% of companies have a sustainability strategy (Forbes).
This environmental, social and economic transformation of companies represents an opportunity to improve their competitiveness, overcoming challenges that are often shared by different business sectors. At the same time, regulatory changes make it urgent to act, facing a technological and process revolution comparable to previous industrial revolutions.
All these characteristics explain why especially SMEs need support to implement these changes. The tourism sector is a clear exponent of this change.
Cross-domain open innovation
From the point of view of innovation, this context facilitates collaboration between companies to face these challenges and the opportunity to find solutions outside their field or sector.
The term open innovation (coined by Henry Chesbrough in 2003) defines this new opportunity and need to find and provide solutions outside the company through contact with other companies or sectors. When open innovation is done in collaboration with other industrial sectors (cross-domain open innovation), the exchange of ideas, technologies and solutions can be clearly differentiating for the companies involved, enabling the generation of innovative and effective solutions to sustainability challenges.
As an example, George De Mestral, inventor of Velcro, got his idea from observing how cockleburs stuck in his dog’s fur.
Is the staff and customer management of a hotel different from that of a hospital? Can a fashion company inspire sustainability changes in the tourism sector? Are energy management developments in industry applicable to the tourism sector? Can the sustainable mobility industry be incorporated into tourism?
Only through such partnerships will SMEs be able to disrupt at the speed necessary to take advantage of these opportunities.