Case study: Pixar

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The open innovation model values all stages of the production process and develops wellbeing in the company. This in turn raises productivity and creativity as a work in constant progress. Taking risks is also an important part in the open innovation system and especially at Pixar. Failure is a source of progress, more than success. This leads people to be more open, more invested and more flexible. According to Brad Bird, executives have to resist to their natural tendency to avoid risks because this instinct leads executives to choose to copy successes rather than try to create something brand-new.

Last but not least in the Pixar’s choice of open innovation model, it is a will: ‘Make your workplace a canvas for the art’. Pixar wanted to have a storytelling campus.

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With this campus, Pixar can offer a dreamful place to work. Like a ‘grande école’, everything in it participates to the wellbeing, while the facilities inspire to do good work. Moreover, there are amphitheatres where courses are held to teach workers how to be more technical, precise and creative.

Finally, the choice of open innovation model answers more humanist problems than economical ones. It manages to take the best of their men in the best conditions of working and living. It works.

- How does the company succeed in capturing the value of the innovation through the open innovation model it implements?

In 2009 George Buckley, CEO of 3M, ranked Pixar number one in a list of most innovative companies because he believes 'Pixar is changing the way movies are made.' There is, at first, a real recognition of the work of Pixar’s animation studios. It is a real value for stock-holders and for the financial situation of the company first.

The studio has earned sixteen Academy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, and eleven Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. It’s an influence that is becoming to be cultural as soft power and it brings more and more animated movies onto cinemas. The cultural and influence value is maybe the strongest reward for innovation.

In 2006, Pixar is purchased by The Walt Disney Company for 7,4 billion dollars which is the most expansive acquisition in the movie making history – before Lucasfilm (4,06 billion dollars) – so the open innovation model permits Pixar to make it, to succeed and to capture a enormous value at the eyes of the world.

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- Management of the open innovation model

Open innovation is a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology” Chesbrough, (2003, XXIV). In this part we will see how Pixar Company uses the open innovation model to increase its achievements and to adapt itself to the sector. It has to combine different sources of knowledge and competences.

- How does the company succeed in favoring open innovation internally

Pixar Company has the capacity to develop a company culture in favor of open innovation. Brad Bird’s, creative director at Pixar, interview explains how they develop open innovation within the company. The most important notion is that Pixar internally pushes employees to try crazy ideas and take risks. “We’ve got to let it go a little crazy where the animators are.” (John Lasseter) it’s all about letting people do what they want to do and to increase creativity, with a free kind of atmosphere. Furthermore, Bird explains that he wants to push teams beyond their comfort zones and encourage dissent, as well as building morale. Morale is important for innovation and the relation between people too. That is why work on team management is in order to increase innovation and the culture around it. Making an animated film sums itself up to being creative, together. You have all these different departments, and what you’re trying to do is find a way to get them to put forth their creativity in a harmonious way. Another point of team building and work is the evolution. They change in the way they think altogether. The boss wants people to take risks and take leaps of faith; at Pixar people are going to look at your scenes in front of everybody and everyone will turn up their work finished or not and receive feedback and encouragements from the others. They all learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Prior to this method, work was individually analyzed. Finally, to get the point of open innovation where they are, Pixar has many thanks to give to its own work place, the buildings. Pixar’s building allows its employees to be in an innovative environment. It was built with Steve Jobs and made especially to gather people in a enjoyable and comfortable work space. They understand that when people intersect each other they can exchange and produce new visions and debates, and with this organization it is impossible for Pixar employees to not run into different co-workers through out the day. Pixar runs itself like a startup or Google would. With such an organization they started developing different kind of classes to encourage people to learn outside of their work comfort zones such as classes in story structuring, Krav-maga, Photoshop and so on… Additionally Pixar story creators can start from the ground up in developing a movie, take for instance Toy Story 2 or Ratatouille.

- How does the company succeed in favoring open innovation externally

Pixar has the capacity to attract external actors to feed its open innovation. It all starts with people. They attract people with their many opportunities of innovation development. However the interesting thing is that they use the value of the “black sheep”. This means they want people who think outside of the box, people who have usually been ignored due to their ideas being too different. Although stimulating the creativity of animators might seem very different from developing new product ideas or technology breakthroughs it allows to have new dynamics in terms of innovation. Furthermore, they increase other view points of work. Work doesn’t have to be perfect, it can be perfected. Few shots need to be perfect in fact, others need to be very good and then there are more that only need to be good enough to no break the magic of the story. There are purists who are all about graphic brilliance but who don’t have the urgency about budgets and scheduling that responsible filmmakers

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