How Open Innovation and Digital Platforms Can Enable Firms to Become Ambidextrous in this Era of Hypercompetitiveness?

This paper explores the intersection of open innovation, digital platforms, and ambidexterity, addressing the challenges they face regarding innovation and growth in a competitive environment. Historically, firms have focused on cost optimization rather than disruptive innovation. However, recent trends suggest that collaborating with start-ups and leveraging digital platforms can foster innovation and drive competitiveness. This study sheds light on how firms can become ambidextrous by examining the dynamics of open innovation and digital platforms. This research utilized a consultative approach, employing an expert interview-based method. Expert interviews were conducted with individuals who have engaged in implementing open innovation and digital platforms in their organizations. Our findings show that catalysing stakeholder co-engagement, improving customer experience, and growth empowerment are vital to an efficient ecosystem. The findings reveal how digital platforms acting as an innovation catalyst and a resource optimizer help ensure open innovation at a firm level, enabling organizations to stabilize exploitation and exploration pursuits and manage in a competitive environment. Our study found out that the ability to leverage the ecosystem significantly affects firm-level options to innovate and transcend beyond firm-level boundaries. This research adds to the literature by answering how open innovation can be enhanced by leveraging digital platforms and providing pragmatic insights to firms on mechanisms to balance exploration and exploitation in the competitive environment by adoption of digital platforms enabling open innovation.