what is closed system and open system Research and Development Division The research and development division of a business is a closed system, because the people responsible for developing new products or new technology work without consulting other divisions in the company. This means that R&D workers are insulated from external influences and don’t interact with anything outside of their system. For an R&D division, operating as a closed system helps business owners protect valuable intellectual property that could be worth millions in the life cycle of a new product or service. Trade Secrets Documentation Systems Some businesses maintain proprietary trade secrets that they must guard to prevent the competition from stealing this information. To keep these secrets, companies sometimes establish a closed system, in which those documents are not available to other departments within the organization, and are shielded from external threats by virus and hacking protection systems. In this closed system, there is no need for interaction outside of the system, because everything the system requires to function properly is contained within the system itself. In fact, external interaction in this instance would expose the business to consequences that could reverberate for years to come.