Fieldwork is the open innovation programme WWG created in 2021 with Colmar, a Brianza-based brand and a symbol of Made in Italy sportswear, and the students of IULM University's Strategic Communication course: the students took the field to make the company's production and distribution processes more sustainable, under the direction of an SME that has made co-creation a founding value. The project celebrated ten years of collaboration between WWG and Colmar and was covered by more than twenty outlets. This page, published in July 2021, collects the press coverage; in 2026 we updated it with a summary of the project and a link to our approach to open innovation.
TL;DR
- Open innovation means opening a company's innovation processes to outside contributions: universities, startups, customers, suppliers.
- Fieldwork combined the energy and creativity of IULM students with Colmar's determination to become more sustainable, with WWG designing and coordinating the programme.
- The project grew out of ten years of collaboration between WWG and Colmar on the B2B catalogue, the configurator and the store locator.
- It was covered by MonzaToday, MBNews, Repubblica Milano, Green Retail, Canale Energia, Instoremag and other outlets.
What was the Fieldwork project with Colmar and IULM?
Fieldwork was an open innovation programme in which IULM's Strategic Communication students worked on a real problem of Colmar's, making production and distribution more sustainable, with WWG designing the method and coordinating the work between university and company. The aim was to combine the energy and creativity of university students with the desire of a Made in Italy brand to become increasingly green.
The project was created to celebrate ten years of collaboration between WWG and Colmar, which began with the B2B online catalogue and continued with the online configurator and the store locator. Working with the same brand for years makes it possible to propose projects that go beyond software, like this one.
Why should a company do open innovation with a university?
Because students bring questions that people who have worked in the same industry for years have stopped asking, because the cost is low compared with consulting, and because the programme produces ideas tested in the field, not slides. The company gets fresh proposals on a concrete problem, the university a real case for teaching, the students an experience worth more than an internship.
The condition is that someone designs the method: a defined problem, timing, evaluation criteria, one contact in the company and one in the university. That was WWG's role in Fieldwork, and it is the approach we describe in our article on open innovation. The same approach, with Politecnico di Milano, produced the P.E.A.S. project on garment traceability.
Would you like to open an innovation programme with universities or startups? Talk to a WWG engineer at business@wwg.it.
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A model in which a company opens its innovation processes to outside contributions, such as universities, startups, customers and suppliers, instead of relying only on internal research. It requires a defined problem, a working method and someone to coordinate the parties; in return it brings new ideas at contained cost, tested in the field.
In the 2021 Fieldwork programme they worked on how to make Colmar's production and distribution processes more sustainable, applying strategic communication skills to a real problem of the company. WWG designed the programme and coordinated the work between university and company.
The collaboration began in 2011 with the B2B online catalogue and continued with the online configurator and the store locator. The 2021 Fieldwork project was created to celebrate ten years of working together; the individual projects are described in the case studies in our portfolio.
