<new> The IpOp Model is a structured process for analyzing and seizing innovation opportunities. It has been very successful in Europe and has been used by companies such as Nestlé, Microsoft, Oracle, Sanofi-aventis, Bühler, Sicpa, Orange, P.A.R.C. and other organizations such as startups and public administrations. In the organization where it is used, it has turned executive education into a real profit center and has boosted innovation with measurable results^[1][2].

The IpOp Model has been originally conceived by Raphaël H Cohen and was first used in 2001 for boosting innovation in a corporate environment. It has since then been substantially improved^[3].

IpOp, which stands for “Innovation per Opportunity”, is a novel approach to corporate entrepreneurship and also an effective tool for start-ups and SBEs. By acting as a proven guide to ensure a systematic and holistic analysis, it helps innovators assess the feasibility of their initiative.

As a result, it prevents them from skipping critical pre-project analysis and directly jumping into execution mode, as is often the case. Byproviding management with a framework to decide which ideas should be pursued it also helps allocate resources more efficiently.

The IpOp Model encourages the use of an Opportunity Case, which addresses all the key issues that interest decision-makers, instead of a business plan. As the missing link between the idea and a convincing action plan, the model guides innovators from the idea to the Opportunity Case or business plan. </new>

The IpOp Model (Innovation per Opportunity) is a novel approach to innovation and corporate entrepreneurship.^[4]

The model was conceived by Raphael Cohen, an expert in professional agility and "weapons of mass innovation" and has been presented in his book "Winning Opportunities, proven tools for converting your projects into succes without a business plan" and before that on the French version of the book under the title "Concevoir et lancer un projet" in 2006. The IpOp model and other tools by Raphael Cohen boost innovation, entrepreneurial behavior, selling effectiveness, business development as well as employees' commitment in large organizations. The IpOp Model is taught in executive education seminars and it empowers entrepreneurs as well as intrapreneurs to identify, analyze and seize opportunities that bring competitive advantages to their company.^[5]

The IpOp model provides management with a framework to decide which ideas should be pursued. It helps innovators and entrepreneurs to assess the feasibility of their initiative in a stimulating and explicit manner and it does that by acting as aproven guide to ensure a systematic and holistic strategic analysis. The use of an Opportunity Case, a concept related to the IpOp Model is encouraged.^[6]

The IpOp model presents some guidelines that should be followed during the process of innovation within a company. It emphasizes the planning phase and discourages "jumping right into action". One thing that distinguishes the IpOp Model from many similar methods that are supposed to simulate innovation is that according to it, it's not necessary to have a business plan in order to present your idea to executives. This however doesn't mean that the planning phase should be skipped as according to it planning is crucial in most innovative projects. One of the most important reasons for that is that many ideas will not be worth the effort and that will become more obvious while planning and making the initial analysis'. On the other hand, if intrepreneurs go through the planning phase and follow the steps described by the IpOp Model and determine that their idea is feasible and will bring advantages to their company, they will be much more confident about it and be much more successful when presenting their idea to the executives in their company and later while implementing their idea.

Another factor to the success of the IpOp Model is that the process of determining which ideas will be pursued is much more transparent if the management in an organization decides to make use of the model. This is very important as in this way employees know the criteria that will be used by management to evaluate their ideas so it will present the most useful and important information about their idea to management. This not only saves time, but let's both management and employees focus only on the most important information during the conception of an idea and then during implementation.

Another aspect of the IpOp Model is that it also encourages non-technological innovation, finding it very important to the development of an organization.^[7]

The IpOp Model has been found to mimic the way experienced entrepreneurs go through the process of innovation in their organization naturally. Some the concepts that this model relies on have been used extensively by the management of HUG(Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève).^[8]

A problem that the IpOp Model addresses is the fact that decision-makers aren't interested in the implementation of a project, but rather on the Opportunity Case and seeing the benefits of such a project. That is why it encourages the use of an Opportunity Case that deals with the issued that interest decision-makers most. In this manner it makes proactive change agents by improving their self-confidence.^[9]

Because the IpOp Model focuses on the information that the decision-makers need to know when being presented with a new idea, it is important that the presenter understand the way that the decision-makers think when they have to take a decision that will determine the future of that idea. Since not all intrepreneurs have the necessary experience to properly understand that thought-process, the IpOp Model presents introduces a set of questions to be considered whose answers will help to compile the Opportunity Case. Some of these questions, as modeled by Raphael Cohen, are presented below:

• What is the Opportunity about?
• What are the Pains, Needs or Desires that justify the Opportunity?
• What are the challenges, issues and difficulties?
• What is the proposed Solution?
• Does the Opportunity fit our strategy and mission?
• What Benefits are brought by the Solution to each key Stakeholder?
• What are the minimum Objectives (Definition of Failure)?
• What are the critical success Factors?
• What are the Risks and Unknowns?
• Who initiated the Project and who will implement it?^[10]

In order to help innovators to easily follow the steps described by the model, there exists a software application that supports it. The application is called IpOp tools and is an intranet or web-based application. The application provides:

• Centralized management of projects
• Standardization of the project selection process
• A way to compare projects in a uniform manner
• A database that stores all the information associated with a project
• A way to monitor the progress of projects
• A system that manages the authorship of projects^[11]

Several organizations have already been using the IpOp model. They include multinational corporations like Oracle, Deutsche Telekom, ST Microelectronics, Cap Gemini, Orange, P.A.R.C.(Xerox), Serono, and Nestlé as well as banks, industrial companies, public administrations, start-ups and non-profit organizations. This illustrates the wide-branching generic use of the model. It can also be customized for specific industries or public sector administrations.