No single company has all the elements of knowledge required to innovate on their own. Companies are forming collaborative networks and partnerships for innovation. The increasing complexity related to innovation today calls for a combination of skills, which can be obtained by collaborating across different types of companies. No single company possesses the vast amounts of specialist knowledge that is needed to solve today’s market challenges and create new and valuable solutions.

The partnerships consist of collaborations between companies’ customers or users, or collaboration with other companies, or collaboration with universities and other knowledge-based organisations to access knowledge globally and innovate.

To do this, companies have to combine and create new knowledge together. This calls for reciprocal influence and mutual trust. Companies are moving away from full control over their innovation processes towards shared influence over joint innovation processes. Knowledge is accessed externally and combined by the partners instead of one company alone owning all the elements of knowledge needed.