Shortened product life cycles, rapidly changing customer preferences, cluttered retail shelf space, private label competition, and the need to do more with less are just a few of the challenges facing food companies large and small. To address these challenges, many companies are adopting an open innovation strategy, which allows a greater level of experimentation in bringing products to the market quickly with a lower level of risk.

The concept of open innovation can provide a spectrum of collaboration opportunities: from sharing technologies more effectively internally to partnering more closely with key suppliers to finding new business partners in entirely different industries.

Although open innovation is still gaining momentum in the food industry, it is not an entirely new strategy for other industries. For years, technology and pharmaceutical companies used incubators and other external capabilities to stay ahead of the steep innovation curve. Eventually, the model spread to other sectors as companies realized that the only way to keep pace in an increasingly competitive and dynamic marketplace was to challenge the traditional model of internal innovation sourcing.

Increasingly, some of the most exciting advances are coming out of smaller, non-traditional organizations, perhaps in adjacent industries. What many companies don’t realize is that by simply opening doors to external resources and expertise that complement, enhance or accelerate the work already taking place, an organization may uncover a product or technology that will take it to the next level.

Successful innovation hinges on having a deep understanding of consumers and being able to meet a specific consumer need more effectively than the competition or being first to market with that revolutionary product. Growth of new channels, including dollar stores, drug stores and club stores are increasing demand for products tailored to these specific shoppers. Open innovation is a way for companies to be more nimble in addressing these needs and quickly realizing some of these growth opportunities.

The reality is that to deliver true innovation to the marketplace on a consistent basis companies need both open innovation and internal innovation. Open innovation is essentially about becoming more connected-connected with colleagues, suppliers, other food companies and the other innovators around the world. At General Mills, our goal is to give our developers the broadest pallet of capabilities, internal or external, that they can choose from to create breakthrough innovations in taste, health and convenience.

Partners who help us achieve our innovation goals benefit from General Mills’ resources, scale and credibility in the marketplace to advance their own business. We believe that innovation, whether it is a product, packaging or process, should deliver mutual benefits to the company, its partners and the consumer.

The company’s formal open innovation initiative, the General Mills Worldwide Innovation Network (G-WIN), has been a critical competitive advantage for General Mills. Through G-WIN, we seek external partners around the globe with patented and patent-pending technologies and commercialized products that are complementary to our brands and businesses. And in addition to proactive searching, the company also reviews innovations from prospective partners submitted via an online portal on General Mills’ website, www.generalmills.com/WIN.

Of course, it is one thing to subscribe to the idea of using external capabilities, and another to actually identify the right resources. With the help of research consultancy Oakland Innovation, General Mills has successfully applied principles of ecosystem mapping to our open innovation program as a way to proactively and efficiently identify the most promising external partners.

Ecosystem mapping is essentially a process for identifying and exploring all of the potential partners and relationships that exist in a specific area of expertise. Through ecosystem mapping, companies can build and maintain relationships with external partners that best fit the company’s overall goals and objectives.

Oakland’s four main steps can help you build your ecosystem map:

Define the Scope. Focus and research are critical to building an effective ecosystem map. Work with your team to clearly define the purpose of your map, identify what you are looking to accomplish and why. Are you looking for a ready-to-go technology, a product idea, a research partner? Establish a list of “must have” traits and characteristics of your ideal partner that align with the map’s purpose. This could include critical knowledge, experience, enthusiasm to partner with outside companies and their connections to other potential partners. Conduct enough research to have the technical depth to engage the right people and ask the right questions. You might find that you need to engage multiple partners to succeed.

Seed the Map. Identify the key players who may play a role in your ecosystem. Look globally to identify and capture obvious candidates. From there, work backward. Use prior art searches, patent maps, press releases, published agendas, conference speakers and organizers, suppliers and information available on the Internet. Leverage personal contacts, meetings and other forums to make preliminary contact with interesting candidates. Stretch your ecosystem by continuing to explore the “innovation food chain”-the links between the producers and consumers of intellectual property relevant to your focus area.

Populate the Map. Reach out and start having conversations with potential partners to refine and prioritize partners in your ecosystem map. By opening dialog, patterns start to emerge and certain players in the ecosystem become more attractive as potential partners. As these contacts gain a better understanding of your goals, challenges and motivations, they may be able to point you toward a previously unidentified candidate.

Evaluate. Rank the potential partners in your map based on your business needs. Consider criteria, including the organization’s willingness to partner, technical depth and breadth, and other capabilities that might be of potential value. Also consider if this partner has further connections that align with your map’s purpose. Once you’ve fully vetted each candidate’s capabilities you can begin to strategically engage partners that align to the scope and expectations you defined early on in the ecosystem mapping process.

Keep in mind that a true partnership must be mutually beneficial in order to develop. Clearly communicating the core competencies that your organization is willing to bring to the relationship is critical, as is clearly articulating the capabilities that you are looking for in a partner. Different partners have different needs, and it is equally important to understand your partners’ needs.

As companies increasingly embrace open innovation to overcome innovation challenges, the ecosystem mapping process can help strategically and efficiently connect companies to an entire world of possibilities that best fit their overall goals and objectives.