On April 1, 2009, the event bidding farewell to Professor Dr. Professor h.c. Dr. h.c. Ralf
Reichwald took place at the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation in Munich. To honor
Professor Reichwald – now professor emeritus at the Technische Universität München – a  colloquium entitled “Leadership for Innovation” was held at the Nymphenburg Palace.

Around 200 colleagues, friends and network partners reflected on the outstanding work Professor Reichwald has done at the Technische Universität München. Professor Reichwald will continue his research activities at CLIC where he has been an Academic Director since its foundation in 2006.

Along with Professor Dr. Kathrin M. Möslein and Professor Anne Sigismund Huff, PhD, he leads CLIC’s research activities, focusing mainly on the topics of leadership of innovation processes, interactive value creation and innovative services.

During the course of the 2 hosted by the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research) entitled “Working – Learning – Developing Skills. Potential for Innovation in a Modern Working Environment” and held April 2-3, 2009, CLIC presented current research results from its projects “GENIE” and “OPEN-I”. In these projects, CLIC focuses on the management of open innovation communities in companies and on the management of innovation networks in the software industry. In the project “OPEN-I,” CLIC examines the role of governance and controlling in open innovation communities. Communities offer companies an alternative innovation mechanism to classical research and development departments. By allowing transparency of input and output, controlling concepts based on social software platforms are a central lever in encouraging acceptance of open innovation approaches in companies. CLIC’s “GENIE” project focuses on the stabilization of the German software industry. In an industry that consists mainly of SMEs, innovations are often the result of a combination
of ideas supplied by several parties. Therefore, success depends particularly on the ability to transform joint ideas into new standards. Starting from the recognition that creating cooperations is an essential factor in this process, “GENIE” aims to develop an integrated innovation and competence management system to promote the growth of innovation processes in German software companies.

Following the successful completion of the Travel Guide project, which illustrated Germany’s highly innovative and futureoriented service industry, CLIC at HHL and Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) have taken on the leadership of the META project “ServProf – Learning and Living Service Professionalism.”

The project is part of the overall program “Innovation through Services” which has been set up and supported by the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research). The main goal of the META project will be to promote the communication and exchange of research results among and around the focus groups and their sub-projects. Therefore, there are also plans to establish a communication platform, which will be accessible on the website www.servprof.de before the end of 2009.

A total of 58 sub-projects will concentrate on a variety of service types or industries such
as care for the elderly, education, energy consulting, retail sales or wellness. The main
research issue will be to identify drivers and constraints which enhance or hinder professionalism and expertise in services. At the end of April, CLIC’s Executive Director Dr. Marcus Kölling and new CLIC staff members Angelika Pößl and Stefan Thallmaier met Professor Dr. Ingeborg Bootz from DLR, the project executing organization, and the members
from AOC Group, a subcontracting company, in Berlin for the project kick-off. Major topics of discussion were the design of the interactive communication platform and the coordination of project tasks between CLIC and AOC Group.

While AOC Group will conduct a qualitative analysis of all sub-projects internally, it is
CLIC’s responsibility to provide a sound overview of current research on service professionalism on a national and an international scale, develop specific policy recommendations and identify outstanding research questions that require investigation.

April 1-3, 2009, the Center for Leading Innovation & Cooperation (CLIC) presented the English edition of the publication “Services Made in Germany – A Travel Guide” at the technology Services Europe Conference (TSE) held in Barcelona.
The Conference was co-presented by AFSMI, SSPA, and TPSA – the three leading professional associations in the services and support industry. Focusing on the attributes that make the European technology services marketplace unique, the participants explored how European-based and multinational companies successfully meet its service needs.

The Travel Guide gives insights into the German service industry, showing remarkable examples of innovation. For example, you can read about fascinating services offered by Flowline, a German company providing service engineering in Hollywood, what bookkeeping will look like in the future, or how a “carefree system” for machines works.

The Guide is a product of the project “Innovative services on the way to world class”, which was supported by the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research).

Innovation – ein Wort, das in aller Munde ist. Unternehmen, unabhängig davon, ob sie groß oder klein, lokal oder international orientiert sind, sind sich einig, dass Innovationen über ihre Wettbewerbsfähigkeit entscheiden. Produkt-, Prozessoder Service-Innovationen sind das angestrebte Ziel von Organisationen, ihre Chance, um mit einem ständig komplexer
werdenden Umfeld und mit sich schnell ändernden Rahmenbedingungen umzugehen. Deutschland spielt im Bereich Service-Innovationen eine Vorreiterrolle. Seit mehr als zwölf Jahren beschäftigt sich die deutsche Dienstleistungsforschung mit der Fragestellung, wie deutsche Dienstleistungsunternehmen noch innovativer werden können. Aufbauend auf deutschen und internationalen Forschungsergebnissen gibt diese Broschüre einen Einblick in die Welt der Service-Innovation, zeigt jüngste Trends in diesem Bereich auf und präsentiert neue Methoden zur Entwicklung von Service-Innovationen.
Was Unternehmen wissen sollten:

• Die Herausforderung, Service-Innovationen umzusetzen, fordert von Unternehmen eine klare Innovationsstrategie. Das Management von Service-Innovationen beinhaltet dabei vier zentrale Elemente, die ineinandergreifen: Suche, Selektion, Implementierung und Evaluierung von innovativen Ideen. Ist nur eine dieser Phasen nicht klar durchdacht, kann der gesamte Innovationsprozess scheitern.
• Diskontinuierliche Service-Innovationen, die nicht nur Vorhandenes verbessern, sondern Bekanntes radikal verändern, bieten besonderes Potenzial, erfordern aber auch unkonventionelle Methoden. Das Prototyping von Ideen in der ersten Phase des Innovationsprozesses bietet hier Hilfestellung. Es ermöglicht frühes Feedback während der realen Erprobung und kann so Entwicklungskosten sowie Marktfl ops deutlich reduzieren.
• Im Innovationsmanagement lässt sich darüber hinaus ein Trend hin zur hybriden Innovationsstrategie erkennen. Dabei liegt der Fokus auf einer Integration von Serviceund Produkt innovationen, wobei die Service-Innovation ihre Schattenrolle als kleine Schwester der Produktinnovation verlässt und nun einen zentralen Stellenwert in der innovativen Produkt-Service-Kombination einnimmt.