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Innovation
Crowdsourcing helps corporations scale innovative solutions for greater impact
Pooling the knowledge and resources of a diverse array of stakeholders can help solve huge unmet needs in society, research shows
As pressure mounts on companies to look beyond profit and tackle pressing societal issues, there is a need for innovative solutions that pool the knowledge and resources of a diverse array of stakeholders to generate impact on a grander scale.
The private sector is a critical part of this process. It has already notched up some successes in terms of scaling up local solutions into global movements (think how Denmark helped pioneer wind energy and the nation’s local champions Vestas and Ørsted have become the world’s biggest maker of wind turbines and offshore wind-farm developer, respectively). However, global progress is simply too slow, given the urgency of the challenges.
To take one example, the UN Environment Program recently warned that climate targets are falling far short of the 45% drop in carbon emissions needed by 2030 to keep global warming below 1.5C, the ultimate goal of the Paris agreement. While renewable energy generation is growing, it’s not keeping up with the rising demand for energy, meaning that fossil fuels remain dominant.
However, all is not lost when it comes to tackling climate change and other sustainability challenges, and there is an effective way for private firms to do their bit for people and the planet. Companies have long used crowdsourcing for product development, but it can also be a catalyst for positive change in the world. The idea is that having more people working on a problem simultaneously gets the best results in the shortest time.
Sustainable solutions to commercial problems
As we detailed in our research paper, crowdsourcing generates novel ideas, attracts the participation of diverse stakeholders, and builds a network of resources that can turn those ideas into concrete action. Corporations such as the US conglomerate General Electric have already used this method to accelerate the development of environmentally sustainable solutions to commercial problems. Unilever, the global consumer goods giant, uses crowdsourcing to improve the sustainability of commodity sourcing.
The nation's local champions Vestas and Ørsted have become the world’s biggest maker of wind turbines and offshore wind-farm developer.In a pilot, Unilever used the digital crowdsourcing platform Premise to help track the flow of raw materials in the first mile of the global supply chain. The group invited people in Indonesia to upload photos of the places where oil palm fruit is traded via an intermediary. That helped the company better understand where the fruit is being grown and validate that its sourcing is not linked to deforestation, a consumer concern.
Unilever is now scaling the project up, by inviting suppliers and other consumer goods companies to join the effort. Bringing different stakeholders together in this way helps organizations generate ideas at a much faster rate than what is possible if they relied solely on people within their own firm. But crowdsourcing is not a silver bullet, and companies will need to carefully manage the process to ensure it bears fruit.
Forge connections between stakeholders and ideas: keys to success
Often, the momentum and ideas generated through these coalitions get lost in translation, because the roles that companies and their executives play in the process tend to frequently change. So, organizations that want to scale up positive solutions must forge connections between stakeholders and ideas across separate phases of any initiative.
Engaging new stakeholders who are joining the initiative is equally important as sustaining the engagement of existing allies, so as not to lose crucial early momentum and build upon it. One way to onboard new organizations is to keep the description of the problem you are trying to solve fairly broad. If the scope of the project is too narrow, you may alienate potential supporters who feel the issue is not relevant to them.
A cautionary tale comes from the award-winning crowdsourcing initiative that we called Save Our Oceans in our paper (the group’s real name has been hidden to protect anonymity). Initially, the group’s focus was on tackling plastic in the ocean, which can enter the marine food chain and damage sea life. While a worthy cause, plastic pollution was less of a focus for corporations that do not operate in the food supply chain, limiting the project’s appeal to a large swathe of potential contributors.
In response, Save Our Oceans changed its focus to conserving and sustainably using the oceans, a mission statement that attracted a much bigger audience. However, a sub-group continued to focus on ridding the oceans of plastic to maintain the momentum they had already generated.
Initially, the group’s focus was on tackling plastic in the ocean, which can enter the marine food chain and damage sea life.The decision to create multiple groups working in parallel is an example of what we call “participatory architecture”, whereby different stakeholders take on distinct roles in the project at different moments in its lifecycle, depending on where they can add the most value.
‘Skin in the game’: the best partners are directly affected by the problem
When it comes to choosing the right partners, our advice is to team up with organizations that need to solve the problem at hand, because it’s critical to the firm’s own sustainability. When people have “skin in the game”, they are more likely to take ownership of the project and commit the necessary resources to see it through to the end.
As well as that, organizations that want to embark on a crowdsourcing journey need to be open to innovation and change, which can be uncomfortable. Curiosity is also essential, with the most successful collaborators usually possessing a keen appetite for learning.
Keeping everyone together won’t be easy. To avoid factionalism among parties with different motives and processes, it is important that you are transparent about each player’s role so that every participant understands how they fit into the bigger picture – in Save Our Ocean’s case, ensuring healthy oceans, which are essential to human existence on earth.
When it comes to scaling the ideas generated by one group of stakeholders, for use by another, one method is to “reach back” to go forward. This means taking a look at the early conversations that took place to enhance and capitalize on previous solutions.
Crowdsourcing technology gets stakeholders up to speed quickly
On fast-growing projects there is not much time for new players to “connect the dots”, but a digital crowdsourcing platform can serve as a repository of data that newer participants can use to review and reflect on past experimentation. The added advantage of a digital platform, such as InnovationCast, is that people can access this information – such as online comments – independently, without having to go back to the original creators.
Ultimately, such platforms will be essential to the wider effort to generate game-changing solutions to the biggest, hairiest problems facing society. Corporations, which have traditionally been concerned with maximizing shareholder value, are now embracing their wider role in society. The effective mobilization of the vast resources of the private sector is going to be vital to nurturing a better world, and crowdsourcing is one way to pool those resources together to solve huge unmet needs in society.
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