Dear all,
my name is Marc and I am a student at the MTEC department at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich).
I currently write my final thesis for a post graduate education on Management, Technology and Economics.

The aim of the thesis is to investigate possible open innovation models within the telecom industry. Basically to understand on whether there is a potential to activate new sources of innovation by opening up networks through APIs and therefore allow developers, customers, and web 2 communities to provide innovative services (for example mashups) on top of the telecom networks.

In order to gather relevant data within the telecom industry i have setup an online survey. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=l8Ieviwrjdol0apUoews2A_3d_3d

I would be very happy if some of you could take the time to fill it in. The results i would be sharing through this forum again...

The model i am proposing consists of the following 4 layers (for an overview picture please have a look here: http://www.box.net/shared/3lzwsmq884):

Enablers: The enablers are the unique assets and capabilities an operator can provide to external parties through exposed APIs. These assets must be of interest to others and enable the implementation of new innovative services.

Sources: The sources basically include on one hand the individuals and groups that have ideas or problems for new services and on the other hand the individuals or groups that provide the expertise and resources to implement the services.

Catalysts: In order to foster the creation of new services different catalysts are necessary. First of all innovation sources as well as solution providers only contribute if there is a benefit for them (incentives). In addition to this, it is important to provide the tools and processes that allow for efficient collaboration and cooperation among the involved parties.

Differentiators: Finally it is important to not only generate a lot of new innovative services but to also generate revenues out of them. Therefore business models are the key to wealth creation. In addition the new services should provide a competitive advantage to the operator in order to make the efforts sustainable and therefore provide further incentives for future investment.

thanks a lot already now to those participating..

regards,
marc