Agile principles like openness, collaboration, rapide prototype testing and adaptability can be implemented in the innovation management processes in various ways. While methods differ, all share a common goal: to bring higher speed into the development of new products and services of large corporations.
Depending on the use case and the group of participants addressed, we have so far distinguished between the following possible applications for agile principles:
- Crowd Innovation
- Prototype Testing
- Idea Management
- Crowd Supercharger
- Solution Scouting
However, just as the innosabi technology continues to evolve, so are the possible applications for agile principles in innovation management. In this regard, we would like to present two further applications, which have now also been implemented in the innosabi crowd platform:
- Supplier Innovation
- Corporate Internal Crowdfunding
Supplier Innovation
A Supplier Innovation Platform is a place for specialized departments to collaborate with possible external partners in early stages of development. For example, suppliers can submit proposals for solutions according to the requirements of a certain project and can get assigned with solving them afterwords. This is not explicitly a tender platform, but a collaborative approach. The time to develop a new product (“Time to Market”) is significantly reduced by the efficient processing of the search/solution scouting. The innosabi software provides all necessary processes and workflows for this use case, and above all, a highly secure environment for this dialogue.
One of our customers summarized his experience with the innosabi Supplier Innovation Platform as follows:
“Supplier Innovation Platforms are primarily designed to enable collaboration with suppliers at an early stage. Due to the close cooperation, time to market is significantly reduced in many cases and high additional revenues can thereby be achieved.”
Internal Crowdfunding
The principles of internal corporate crowdfunding enable ideation, selection/prioritization and realization to be seamlessly combined within the innovation process. As a first step, ideas that can be submitted, commented on and developed by the engagement of the crowd. As a second step, a virtual budget can be distributed to the relevant ideas by the crowd, ie the employees. Ideas with sufficient funding will receive actual resources to develop a ”minimum viable product” or digital prototype. Optionally, this procedure can also be connected to so-called Accelerator programs.
Virtual crowdfunding motivates to work collaboratively on innovation projects throughout the company. This promotes positive change in corporate culture.
Frieder Munk from the Corporate Strategy & Digital Life Team of the Daimler AG reports on his experience from the use of the innosabi crowd platform within the framework of internal crowdfunding at Daimler:
“On our Crowdsourced Innovation Platform we have a greater reach for Ideation processes, and also more interaction and comments compared to traditional workshops. In such events, we typically had about 100 participants. In a comparable project on the platform, we reach up to 20,000 people. With each additional participant we can access more knowledge and experience regarding the respective topic.”
In addition to the range, he also focuses on activity and participation:
“Participation rates vary by country and subject. The biggest success so far we had with a funding challenge in India: an incredible 95% of the approximately 4,000 employees came to the platform.”
