Industry challenge: How are our companies changing?

Industrial companies are increasingly asking themselves how they need to adapt their business models in order to adapt to developments in the industrial economy. But how can they counter this dynamic? With the now published "Trend Book Innovation - Open Industry", Open Innovation City shows how cities and industrial companies are changing and how the transformation to new business models can succeed.

The industrial economy is in the midst of extensive and intensive social and technological developments. For example, the sustainable transformation and climate change are leading to new issues in product development, energy use or recycling, while new technologies and collected data promise intelligent alignment of production and significant advantages in efficiency and effectiveness. With the now published "Trend Book Innovation - Open Industry", Open Innovation City shows how cities and industrial companies are changing and how the transformation to new business models can succeed.

Industrial companies are increasingly asking themselves how they need to adapt their business models in order to adapt to developments in the industrial economy. In addition, however, it is always a question of how the people in the companies would like to work in the future and how they can be taken along on this path of change.

These dynamics and complexities lead to the realization that good approaches to solutions can also be devised in a network, e.g. as a cooperation between business and science. If we think even further ahead, these challenges have an impact on entire cities and regions, whose future as a business location will depend to a large extent on their ability to successfully master these developments and thus their own structural change. This makes it all the more important to learn from existing, innovative approaches: from companies that have developed forward-looking products, processes or business models; from collaborative networks that have arrived at novel solutions through openness and cooperation; and from urban or regional approaches to promoting innovative structural change.

"In today's world, where business and industry are confronted with situations for which there are no empirical data, an amalgamation of knowledge is fundamental. In particular, the principle of deliberate and strategically deployed openness in innovation processes is important," says Almut Rademacher, managing director of owl maschinenbau, co-author of the trend book and co-initiator of the Open Innovation City project.

"The different practical examples of local and international startups, medium-sized companies and corporations define the special nature of the diversity of possible solutions and approaches. The companies presented realize their own sustainability approach in the form of strategies, innovative

processes and services with the aim of reducing energy and resources," says Rademacher, describing the contents of the new trend book.

The publication focuses on the topic of open industry for an open exchange culture in industry and business. The focus is on five key topics that are currently particularly relevant: Circular Industry, Net Zero Factory, New Business Models, Intelligent Production and Future of Work.

The "Trend Book Innovation - Open Industry" can be downloaded here free of charge. Alternatively, a printed version is available from the Innovation Office (Alter Markt 13 in Bielefeld's old town).

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