David Cushman: strategy partner at The Social Partners
David Cushman: strategy partner at The Social Partners
A view from David Cushman

The 10 Principles of Open Business

The demand from customers for transparency, trust, and collaboration is driving change. There has never been a more important time for businesses to open up and partner with all; finding new partnerships with other businesses, creating new services in collaboration with customers, and sharing their assets in a way that creates innovation.

‘The 10 Principles of Open Business’ looks at the epoch-making shift happening around us and examines why "openness" is a key factor for the future of our organisations.

According to IBM’s CEO survey in 2012, companies that outperform their sector are 30 per cent more likely to identify ‘openness’ as a key factor in their success, and companies are 50 per cent more likely to outperform their rivals and grow sustainable profit following this approach.

The book includes case studies and interviews from leading proponents, with a preface by Matt Atkinson, the chief marketing officer of Tesco; interviews with Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian; former UK defence minister Tom Watson, and presidents, vice-presidents  and chief executives of international blue-chip companies and ground-breaking start-ups.

‘The 10 Principles of Open Business’ is a serious, challenging, wide-ranging and practical guide to organisational design for the twenty-first century. Some of the principles considered are:

Open capital – using crowd-funding platforms or principles to raise capital through micro-investments

Networked organisation – functioning as a platform connecting internal networks to the external for a common purpose

Shareability – packaging knowledge for easy and open internal and external sharing

Connectedness – Connecting all employees to one another and externally through open social media

Open innovation – Innovating with partners, sharing risk and reward in the development of products, services and marketing

Open data –Making your data freely available to those outside your organisation

Transparency – Openly sharing decisions and the criteria on which they are based

Member/partner-led – Structuring your organisation around employees, customers and partners for their mutual social, economic and cultural benefit

 The 10 Principles of Open Business
Building Success in Today’s Open Economy

Published 8 January 2014. Hardback; £19.99

David Cushman is strategy partner at The Social Partners