Innovation Framework Technologies

Your innovation pipeline is only as good as the ideas coming into it, and while most companies have no problem finding incremental ideas, many struggle to discover the big, bold ideas that will drive profitable growth.

Top innovators know that this ‘front end of innovation’ is too important to be left to chance. They implement an automated ideation process that yields a steady stream of good ideas. They also know that ideation is not just about technology, it’s also about combining new business models, partners, processes, services & experiences to create customer value.

Our ideation software automates your entire front end of innovation process, and scales from departmental usage connecting less than 100 users, to full open-innovation for over a million idea submitters.

The system can be deployed standalone or integrated with our other modules.

Problems Solved

How will we find bolder ideas, instead of incremental ones?
How can we motivate employees to suggest new ideas?
How can we ideate with customers, suppliers & the crowd?
Can we accelerate idea generation?
How should we pick the best ideas to become projects?

Our Ideas module is powered by Qmarkets software.

« Great inventors have a process, an individual process, and it usually involves connecting things that most of us don’t see the connections in.
We also focused on creating a practice of open innovation taking advantage of the skills and interests of people throughout the company and looking for partnerships outside P&G. »

A.G. Lafley, CEO Procter & Gamble

Idea Management Key Features

Ideation Campaigns

Launch campaigns to find good ideas for specific innovation challenges.

The traditional approach to ideation – submitting ideas on any subject via email or social network, has been ineffective at yielding relevant and viable ideas.

Instead, good ideas start with a good problem statement tied to your innovation objectives. These problem statements become ideation campaigns, with well-defined objectives, scope and constraints for the types of solutions needed.

Our software provides a comprehensive approach to defining, launching and managing ideation campaigns. Use campaigns to gather insights and ideas to:

Develop new or improved products and services.
Identify new market opportunities for your technologies.
Improve existing processes and operations.
Collaborate with customers or suppliers.
Capture unsolicited proposals from external inventors.
Engage external experts for solutions outside your knowledge.
Work with industry consortia on common issues.

Expertly define ideation campaign with our Campaign Wizard.
Approve & launch campaigns with our Campaign Scheduler.
Streamline campaigns with pre-defined workflows.
Promote campaigns with automated notifications to participants.
Track campaign progress with metrics and dashboards.

Ideate Anywhere

Submit ideas & insights easily, wherever and whenever the thought occurs.

Ideas can pop into your head at any time. So making it quick and easy to capture that idea is crucial to increasing the rate of participation in your idea campaign.

Our software enables you to capture an initial idea or insight immediately, via your smart phone, tablet or computer. Fill in a simple form to record the idea. Get prompted with similar ideas already entered to prevent duplication. Add a photo or image for further impact. Browse your draft ideas and add additional details and attachments when you have time. When ready, publish your idea to the campaign for further collaboration.

Capture initial ideas with simple forms.
Automatically see similar ideas to prevent duplicates.
Enter ideas anywhere with smartphone, tablet, Mac or PC.
Add photos, images and other attachments.
Multi-lingual idea submission, with auto-translate.

Collaborate

Connect with experts and colleagues. Grow or combine ideas to create bolder concepts.

Small ideas become big ideas when people with diverse skillsets brainstorm together. But the right people may not always be able to connect and meet.

Our software provides an online forum for collaborating on each idea. Campaign participants comment on ideas that interest them. Idea authors request input from colleagues. Subject matter experts are prompted to add information to ideas relating to their skillset. See how ideas are connected to other ideas. Combine ideas into a single concept for further evaluation.

Peer ‘likes’ or votes to promote ideas.
Discussion threads on ideas.
Complete additional idea required fields.
Prompt SMEs to add their expertize.
Cluster and combine ideas into a single concept.

Evaluate

Promote & select ideas using peer ranking, voting and best-practice scorecards.

Screening ideas to identify the most promising is an essential early filter in your innovation pipeline. Allowing impractical or irrelevant ideas to linger dilutes focus and wastes time.

Our software enables you to screen and select ideas effectively. Use peer ‘likes’ or votes to promote ideas for others to contribute to. Set rules to automatically progress ideas. Use best-practice scorecards and expert token voting to prioritize and select the best ideas for further development.

Select challenge evaluation committee.
Rule-based progression of ideas.
Expert reviews to screen ideas.
Best-practice scorecards to select ideas.

Motivate

Engage & motivate participation by measuring & recognizing people's contributions.

The best ideation process is useless if no one wants to participate. And motivation comes down to effective skills alignment, communication & recognition.

Our software helps increase participation in ideation challenges. Invite the right communities of practice to join innovation campaigns. Send automated updates to inform participants of idea status and weekly progress. Quantify participant contributions to recognize the most valuable players. Review participation metrics by user community, function or business unit.

Identify communities of practice with relevant skills.
Automatic notification to participants informed.
Recognize most value contributors.
Endorse your peers with status badges.
Monitor contribution by organizational group.

Workflows

Accelerate ideation with configurable workflows for different campaigns.

Ideation should be process-light and collaboration-heavy. But some process is essential to streamline the flow of ideas from submission to final decision.

Our software provides configurable workflows to cater for different types of campaign or organization. Use one workflow for breakthrough product ideas and another for operational process improvements. Create a workflow specific to your Chinese Supply Chain team (in Chinese) and another for external crowdsourced campaigns.

Configure workflows for different campaigns or organizations.
Define roles and responsibilities for campaigns and ideas.
Control access and information needs as an idea progresses.
Trigger email alerts & requests for different idea events.
Set idea status based on screening and selection decisions.

Open Innovation

Engage external experts, customers, partners & 'the crowd' for new ideas & insights.

Many companies have added an idea suggestion page to their public websites, to attract ideas from ‘the crowd’. But these submission pages are typically disconnected to any automated workflow, so require time-consuming manual attention.

Our software provides an integrated approach to external idea submission. Embed our open innovation portal directly in your public website. Broadcast campaigns, capture ideas and confirm intellectual property rights. Manage incoming ideas with an automated workflow – sending notifications to submitters and routing the idea internally. Collaborate directly with submitters once ideas have been screened.

Embed our open innovation portal directly in your public website.
Launch open campaigns & capture ideas via this portal.
Submitters self-register directly or via Facebook.
Enforce notifications about IP rights.
Automated idea workflows reduce manual processing.

Reporting

Track idea campaign progress and participation. Notify participants of status & results.

Our software provides the dashboards to manage your entire ideation process. Track the flow rate of ideas through challenges. Monitor participation and collaboration from different groups. See the value and balance of your idea portfolio. Identify and recognize your top contributors. Track key performance metrics of your ideation pipeline.

Track quantity and time of ideas in each stage.
Monitor participation and flow of ideas in campaigns.
Personal tracking of ideas and activity feed.
Manage incoming ideas & automated email notifications.
Integrate with your internal ideation process flow.

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