InnoCentive Blog

Global partnership delivers a unique proposition for any organization seeking to solve business challenges and drive innovation

Waltham, MA – 11 February 2020 – Open innovation firm InnoCentive has announced a major new partnership with UK idea management scaleup Wazoku, which will create the world’s most comprehensive and powerful innovation platform and community.

Wazoku’s Idea Spotlight innovation platform will be integrated with InnoCentive’s global network of more than 400,000 expert problem ‘solvers’ and Challenge Driven Innovation™ methodology.

The joint offering is thought to be the world’s biggest innovation community and broadest innovation offering, allowing the crowdsourcing of solutions to the most pressing of business and technological challenges anywhere, anytime.

“We see a lot of demand from our customers for a more integrated offering, enabling open innovation challenges, while also supporting internal and ecosystem focused innovation,” said Alpheus Bingham, CEO and co-founder of InnoCentive. “Wazoku’s platform is feature-rich, inherently scalable and has already proved its commercial viability and effectiveness. It will add a new dimension to our challenges and together we create an open innovation platform, community and marketplace unlike any other in the world.”

InnoCentive customers will benefit from a platform partner that brings a richer and broader suite of features and functionality. Wazoku’s innovation platform, Idea Spotlight, is regarded as one of the most advanced in the innovation sector and is used by organizations such as the Ministry of Defence, National Health Service and HSBC to capture, evaluate, improve and implement ideas from employees, customers, partners and other groups of stakeholders.

“Wazoku is always looking for ways of bringing new ideas to the market and with this partnership we can offer a solution at a scope and scale that no other company can,” said Simon Hill, CEO, Wazoku. “Our Idea Spotlight platform is widely recognised by analysts, customers and peers for its rate of product innovation and by combining that with InnoCentive’s solver network we have created a unique proposition for problem solving and crowdsourcing ideas.”

Initially the partnership will see the integration of Wazoku’s Idea Spotlight with InnoCentive’s external network of more than 400,000 solvers and its Challenge Driven Innovation™ methodology. Following this, the two companies will develop the Wazoku ‘Spotlight.ai’ functionality, adding more AI and machine learning to the open innovation offering to help global businesses more effectively source, evaluate and identify the best outcomes to address their innovation challenges.

Dr. Thomas Malone, Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, sees the partnership as the natural progression of open innovation: “Integrating the components of idea management and crowdsourcing allows companies to solve problems and create opportunities using many channels both outside and inside the organization. This combination of market leaders, InnoCentive and Wazoku, represents a substantial maturation in the open innovation sector.”

For Wazoku, the partnership with InnoCentive also provides a further footprint into the important US market, as Simon Hill, CEO, Wazoku, explains:

“The global idea management market will reach more than £1bn within two years, and a significant part of that is within the US. It’s a key market for Wazoku and partnering with InnoCentive is the perfect way for us to make more significant inroads into the US and attract new customers.”

For further information about InnoCentive, please visit https://www.innocentive.com/

For further information about Wazoku, please visit https://www.wazoku.com

PR Contact:

Rich Barletta – InnoCentive, Inc.

+1 978-482-3314

Paul Allen – Rise PR

+44 (0) 7515 199 487 / paul@risepr.co.uk

It’s been established through research that larger budgets don’t necessarily lead to more R&D success. It’s a quality over quantity equation. When departments or business units are given unlimited budgets and money expenditures are not managed, careless spending can occur, which leads to less innovation not better innovation. When budgets are put in place and measured based on performance/results, problem solving innovation becomes more focused on the most pressing needs of the organization. There is no room for innovation projects that will not yield results or be implemented unless unbounded ideas are lacking at your company.

Differentiating Innovation Capacity and Innovation Ability

Nothing illustrates the point that budgeting does not kill innovation better than understanding the difference between innovation capacity and innovation ability. Innovation capacity is widely known as an organization’s potential for innovation. It encompasses the assets and resources (both financial and human capital…the people you have hired or freelancers) the organization has at its disposal and can use throughout the innovation process.

You could say that it’s essentially the “innovation capital” an organization is working with.

Innovation ability (or innovation skill) is the organization’s potential to create value for customers or marketplaces. It’s inventing new products that consumers find useful and want to purchase. It’s refining a provided service that brings greater value to customers. It’s creating new technology that solves a problem, whether that problem affects an organization or society at large.

Innovation ability is essentially an organization’s ability to achieve true ROI through their innovation projects.

No matter how large an innovation budget is (increasing innovation capital), it’s innovation ability that drives ROI. What also matters is investing in tools, people and resources that increase innovation ability, thus gaining better results from getting better solutions for your people to use, implement or refine. In other words, by investing budgets wisely, you can increase innovation ability with more robust, at-will and diverse innovation capitol.

Open Innovation is the Key to Innovation Ability

Nothing increases an organization’s innovation ability more than embracing open innovation. Leveraging the crowd allows organizations to increase their innovation ability by adding a huge external team of prepared minds and unknown experts in a multitude of different fields, all without spending a significant amount of financial capital to acquire them. This is the power of crowdsourcing solutions. By taking specific innovation problems or needs to the gig-economy of intelligence, organizations can leverage the freelance world to accomplish more and obtain better solutions, all while freeing up their internal innovation teams to work on other projects or new better solutions from the crowd.

Invest Wisely with InnoCentive

InnoCentive works with organizations to design innovation problems into thoughtful Challenges that are presented to our global solvers of more than 400,000 prepared minds from a variety of different disciplines. By working with InnoCentive, you can achieve a better ROI on your innovation investments without having to increase your budget or replace your internal innovation team. The process of open innovation is complex for anyone doing this the first time, but that’s not for you to worry about. InnoCentive handles everything from Challenge design to agreements for intellectual property transfer from Solvers to your organization.

Reach out to InnoCentive today to increase your innovation ROI

Harnessing the power of innovation is the key for every company and organization. R&D Teams who are more innovative will more quickly overcome challenges and find new ways to solve their organization’s challenges. Being innovative is more than having the education necessary in your field, it’s about forming the right habits that increase the number of innovative ideas that come to mind. These are some of the most common habits exhibited by innovative people.

They Pursue Their Passions

Some of the most innovative people in the world reach their goals because they pursue their dreams. Doing things that you enjoy makes you much more innovative than you would otherwise be, and this fact makes sense when you look at it. When you do things that don’t interest you, your mind starts to wander, killing your innovation.

If you are a business leader, learn about your team members and the things that make them tick. Try giving people positions that involve doing things they enjoy, and you will watch them shine. As an employee, ask yourself if you are passionate about your career. When you are away from work, dedicate at least a little time each day to something you enjoy.

They Seek New Experiences and Knowledge

No matter your rank or the industry in which you work, seeking new knowledge and experiences will take your creativity up a notch or two. Innovative people formulate lists of the things they would like to learn or experiences they want to have. They then dedicate a little time each day to reading guides and lessons related to the topics they want to learn. Besides learning new topics, they also commit to having at least one or two new experiences each month.

They Question Everything

You will find that the most innovative people on the planet have open minds and question everything. As a business leader, question whether your way of handling problems is the best. Maybe traditional methods of innovation aren’t working, and maybe it’s time to try new methods. For example, many people are embracing open innovation because of how it is changing the innovation landscape. While doing so might not always be easy, embracing new ideas and methods of innovation opens the door for new solutions that could skyrocket your productivity. Make a habit of double-checking all the new information you learn. Although asking questions is vital, you must balance it by committing to the process the second you start a project.

They Are Willing to Fail

Few things in life kill creativity more than the fear of failing. If you are serious about letting creativity lead the way, accept that failure is a natural part of the process. The important thing is to decide the level of risk you are willing to take, and trying to learn something from each failure is another critical part of the puzzle.

Make New Habits

A key ingredient to business success, creativity is one of the most important traits R&D employees can have. If you have a hard time coming up with creative ideas and solutions, turn the tips you have just learned into daily habits. Doing so might take some time at first, but it’s worth the effort in the end. When you commit yourself to the process and make an effort to inspire your creative side, you will be pleased by what you can achieve.