Qmarkets, the leading supplier of collective intelligence solutions, has partnered with Ishin Co. Ltd., a well-established B2B professional services company, to offer a full-service innovation management package to large organizations in Japan.
Tokyo, 5th June, 2020 – Qmarkets is pleased to announce the formalization of a partnership with Ishin Co, in the shared interest of promoting the increased use of innovation management software in Japan. This partnership comes as the result of 9 months of successful cooperation between the two parties working on several strategic opportunities.
Based in Japan, Ishin Co also has offices in Singapore, the USA, and Israel, while Qmarkets maintains a global presence, with employees spread across Israel, the UK, Germany and the USA. This partnership will expand Qmarkets’ presence in Japan, increasing the capacity to offer end-to-end support to both new and existing idea management customers.
Fostering Corporate Innovation in Japan and Beyond
Qmarkets’ suite of collective intelligence platforms are used by leading organizations across the globe to support a wide variety of critical business objectives, from kaizen continuous improvement, to technology scouting, to disruptive innovation management. These platforms allow clients to harness the collective intelligence of their employees, customers, partners, and supply chain, to deliver tangible bottom line results.
“We immediately saw the incredible potential value that the Qmarkets platform could offer to our clients” said Shunsuke Nagaoka, Global business manager of Ishin Co.Ltd. “Japan is one of the most innovative countries in the world, and yet there is little awareness around idea and innovation management software here. With this partnership hopefully we can change that.”
Ishin Co is the latest company to join Qmarkets’ extensive list of global partners. “We’re very pleased to see such an excellent fit between vendor and partner” said Andrew Corbishley, Global Partner Manager at Qmarkets. “This partnership and the increased presence that it will create, represents a significant milestone for our company.
About Ishin Co
Founded in 2005, Ishin Co is a B2B media and event company, offering information to startups and other enterprises who wish to expand their businesses and operations. Ishin Co also helps match these companies to create more collaborations, and connect them with specialists and business consultants who can meet their specific requirements. The company owns TECHBLITZ – which distributes interview articles from overseas startups and supports innovation in Japanese companies.
About Qmarkets
Qmarkets is an established leader in the field of idea and innovation management, offering solutions to enable enterprises around the world leverage the wisdom of the crowd. The flexible software provided by Qmarkets is designed to help clients manage their innovation processes from end to end, as well as locate, analyze, and implement groundbreaking ideas effectively.
Qmarkets has developed a reputation over the last 10 years for delivering one of the most comprehensive crowdsourcing software solutions in the world. Recognized by leading analysts such as G2, Gartner, Forrester, MWD Advisors and Info-tech, Qmarkets offers unmatched technical and design flexibility to their extensive list of leading global clients; including Nestle, Ford, Lufthansa, Ab InBev, Philip Morris International, Bridgestone, and many more.
To discover how Qmarkets can help you meet your innovation goals, get in touch with us today!
Qmarkets has been lauded as both a Momentum Leader and Grid® Leader in a new idea management software report by G2 – the world’s largest tech marketplace.
G2 has recently released its Spring 2020 Report for Idea Management. Utilizing advanced algorithms, the report aggregates data from user reviews, social networks, and other online sources – making it an ideal resource for enterprise customers looking to find the best idea management tool for their unique needs.
Building on the positive results showcased in previous G2 reports, Qmarkets continues to rank prominently among leaders in the idea management software industry, achieving a higher overall customer satisfaction score than any in previous G2 reports. The metrics featured in this report represent users’ views regarding the software’s capabilities, support services, product direction, and a host of other key criteria.
Qmarkets Remains the Idea Management Momentum Master
Qmarkets is the undisputed leader in G2’s Spring 2020 Momentum Grid® Report, due to a combination of growth projection factors including both the quantity and quality of reviews submitted by customers. In fact, the review growth that Qmarkets has received on G2 is now more than 3 times the platform’s average.
While the horizontal axis of the Momentum report showcases satisfaction levels, the vertical axis indicates momentum score. A vendor’s momentum score is calculated by a proprietary algorithm that factors in various data sets that G2 identifies as impacting a software supplier’s momentum. Only one other idea management supplier is listed as a leader on the report, and Qmarkets’ momentum score is a full 9 points higher than this competitor.
Qmarkets Still Leading on the Idea Management Grid
Qmarkets remains firmly established in the ‘Leader’ quadrant of G2’s Momentum Grid® Report for Idea Management Spring 2020. In order for a vendor to qualify for this top quadrant, they must have both a substantial G2 user approval rating and a wide-ranging market presence.
Out of all the leaders on the report, Qmarkets was highlighted at no.1 for the categories ‘Ease of Setup’, ‘Ease of Use’, and ‘Product Going in Right Direction’. In addition to being named the best idea management tool in these areas, Qmarkets was joint no.1 for ‘Ease of Admin’.
Exponential Success: Why Qmarkets Ranks Among the Best Idea Management Tool Providers
“We regard feedback on our platform as incredibly important, not just internally for our team, but also for other customers and prospects evaluating the competitive market. The feedback in this latest G2 report has been very promising for us.” said Eran Tsur, Qmarkets’ VP of Marketing. “The case studies, as well as the extensive reviews we’ve received from our customers, inspire us to push our boundaries even further. To see our satisfaction ratings increase on G2, while also gaining consistently positive responses from traditional analysts, is extremely encouraging. It’s validation that our product is going in the right direction, so we’re even more resolved to consolidate our successes.”
The complete G2 Idea Management Software reports for Spring 2020 are now available to download free from the Qmarkets website. Simply click below to get this detailed comparative report sent directly to your email address. You’ll then be able to see for yourself why Qmarkets ranks among the best idea management tool providers.
About Qmarkets
Qmarkets is an established leader in the field of idea and innovation management, offering solutions to enable enterprises around the world leverage the wisdom of the crowd. The flexible software provided by Qmarkets is designed to help clients manage their innovation processes from end to end, as well as locate, analyze, and implement groundbreaking ideas effectively.
Qmarkets has developed a reputation over the last 10 years for delivering one of the most comprehensive crowdsourcing software solutions in the world. Recognized by leading analysts such as Gartner, Forrester, MWD Advisors and Info-tech, Qmarkets offers unmatched technical and design flexibility to their extensive list of leading global clients; including Nestle, Ford, Lufthansa, Ab InBev, Philip Morris International, Bridgestone, and many more.
Qmarkets’ software offering extends beyond innovation management to include products focusing on process improvement, continuous improvement and operational excellence; open innovation with customers and business partners; technology scouting for enterprise M&A opportunities; and digital employee engagement.
The innovation management solutions offered by Qmarkets are completed by a commitment to customer success. This is shown by Qmarkets’ global team, and supported through best-practices, workshops, training, professional services, and more.
Highly innovative aerospace, defense, and industrial manufacturer Curtiss-Wright has selected Qmarkets to crowdsource the “collective wisdom” of their global workforce.
Curtiss-Wright has invited its entire global workforce of approximately 9,300 employees to participate in a new idea management platform, provided by leading supplier of collective intelligence solutions: Qmarkets. The award-winning Q-ideate platform enables employees to contribute towards solving a wide variety of strategic business challenges faced by Curtiss-Wright on an ongoing basis.
Launched on March 25th 2020, the platform allows employees to submit innovative ideas for everyone within the organization to see. These ideas are then developed through organic discussion before the most valuable submissions are selected for implementation.
As the ‘corporate descendants’ of the famously ambitious Wright brothers (the fathers of flight) and Mr. Glenn Curtiss (the father of naval aviation), Curtiss-Wright has a strong heritage of innovation, which Qmarkets will help to sustain.
Curtiss-Wright Corporation is a diversified, multinational provider of highly engineered and technologically advanced products and services. This video showcases the history of the company, as well as it’s global operations today.
After previously using another file repository to gather ideas from employees, Curtiss-Wright’s project team evaluated a variety of innovation management platform options before deciding which vendor to partner with. Ultimately, the flex edition of Qmarkets’ Q-ideate tool was chosen, in order to leverage advanced self-admin capabilities – including workflow configuration, custom submission forms, role management, and automation functionality. The system will be available in multiple languages to maximize participation.
Curtiss-Wright’s new idea management platform is supported by Qmarkets’ customer success offerings – designed to help ensure the company drives continuous results from their innovation efforts. “It’s really thrilling to be able to support innovation at a company which has proven to be so innovative over such a long period of time.” said Ilona Gochman, Qmarkets’ Head of Customer Success. “We look forward to working closely with Curtiss-Wright and playing a role in helping their innovation efforts reach new heights.”
About Curtiss-Wright
Curtiss-Wright produces premier technology-based electronic and mechanical subsystems and components for rugged aerospace, defense and highly specialized industrial applications. With manufacturing facilities around the world, Curtiss-Wright is a leading provider of cost-effective and technology-based solutions.
Currently, Curtiss-Wright operates through three segments: Flow Controls, Controls, and Surface Technologies. Their network of facilities enhances the company’s ability to serve global markets more efficiently. Curtiss-Wright employees deliver class-leading innovation and technological expertise, and are integral to an efficient manufacturing and distribution network that ultimately improves competitiveness and the satisfaction of customers.
Growing steadily by leveraging the critical mass and powerful suite of capabilities built over the past decade, Curtiss-Wright are driving operational excellence and financial discipline to achieve top-quartile performance. The company currently enjoys leading positions in several key markets served. Their goal is to be the trusted “go to” company for solving the most difficult engineering problems within specific specialities or solutions.
About Qmarkets
Qmarkets is an established leader in the field of idea and innovation management, offering solutions to enable enterprises around the world leverage the wisdom of the crowd. The flexible software provided by Qmarkets is designed to help clients manage their innovation processes from end to end, as well as locate, analyze, and implement groundbreaking ideas effectively.
Qmarkets has developed a reputation over the last 10 years for delivering one of the most comprehensive crowdsourcing software solutions in the world. Recognized by leading analysts such as Gartner, Forrester, MWD Advisors and Info-tech, Qmarkets offers unmatched technical and design flexibility to their extensive list of leading global clients; including Nestle, Ford, Lufthansa, Ab InBev, Philip Morris International, Bridgestone, and many more.
Qmarkets’ software offering extends beyond innovation management to include products focusing on process improvement, continuous improvement and operational excellence; open innovation with customers and business partners; technology scouting for enterprise M&A opportunities; and digital employee engagement.
The innovation management solutions offered by Qmarkets are completed by a commitment to customer success. This is shown by Qmarkets’ global team, and supported through best-practices, workshops, training, professional services, and more.
For press inquiries please contact:
Mr. Elliott Wilkins
Marketing Manager, Qmarkets
elliott.wilkins@Qmarkets.net
To find out how Qmarkets can help you uncover growth-driving ideas for your enterprise, don’t hesitate to get contact us today!
Qmarkets’ software has been chosen by LEAD Innovation Management GmbH to support a groundbreaking initiative – designed to leverage the collective wisdom of global businesses against the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
LEAD Innovation Management – an acclaimed Austrian firm specializing in corporate innovation – has transformed their extensive LEAD user network into a digital crowdsourcing platform using Qmarkets’ software. Named ‘LEAD Proactive’, this platform serves as a hub in which companies can detail problems they are facing due to the COVID-19 crisis, and contribute ideas to help other companies overcome their unique challenges.
LEAD Proactive makes use of Qmarkets’ extensive idea collaboration and co-creation features. Once a company submits a challenge, it is open for other users from relevant companies to brainstorm around it and contribute potential solutions – adding comments and attachments (documents, videos, images, etc.) where required. The platform is available to businesses across all sectors and implements the best-practice methodologies of both Qmarkets and LEAD Innovation Management.
LEAD Proactive unifies LEAD Innovation’s field-proven methodologies with Qmarkets’ powerful software.
“To provide rapid and comprehensive support to as many businesses as possible during this trying time, we knew we’d need a cutting-edge innovation management platform, and this is why we chose Qmarkets.” said Michael Putz, Founder of LEAD Innovation Management. “The automated idea transition capabilities, task management options, and advanced reporting features enabled us to deliver an outstanding system. We’re confident that LEAD Proactive will serve as an invaluable weapon that enterprises can wield against the manifold difficulties caused by the disruption we’re all facing.”
The LEAD Proactive initiative has been launched on an entirely ‘pro-bono’ basis. Its exclusive aim is to help companies gain access to the expertise and innovative creativity of the global ecosystem. Already, the LEAD user network has given rise to a potential turnkey solution in Austria for drive-in COVID-19 testing stations. It is predicted that, if this solution is actualized, 57,000 tests could be carried out per day in supermarket parking lots throughout the country – potentially saving thousands of lives.
LEAD Innovation Management has developed a turnkey solution for setting up drive-in stations that will facilitate mass testing for the coronavirus.
“We’re very proud to assist our Austrian partners in their efforts to support global businesses at this uncertain time.” said Noam Danon, Qmarkets’ CEO and Founder. “We have already seen some very encouraging outcomes from our customers during this crisis, so we’re excited to see what happens when the door is opened to facilitate collaboration.”
About LEAD Innovation Management GmbH
The company was founded in 2003 under the name “LEAD User Network” as a spin-off from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. LEAD Innovation Management is the first provider of the LEAD User Method in the German-speaking world.
LEAD Innovation’s field-proven idea management process will be leveraged against the COVID-19 crisis
Just two years after its foundation, LEAD Innovation Management was transformed into a limited liability company. Continuous competence and branch expansion enabled the company to have an international network at its disposal – which creates ideas and innovations in cooperation with respective clients and successfully launches them on the market.
LEAD Innovation Management’s team of experienced employees assist major companies from all industries, supporting them in everything from structuring and planning projects, to inventing and marketing innovations.
About Qmarkets
Qmarkets is an established leader in the field of idea and innovation management, offering solutions to enable enterprises around the world leverage the wisdom of the crowd. The flexible software provided by Qmarkets is designed to help clients manage their innovation processes from end to end, as well as locate, analyze, and implement groundbreaking ideas effectively.
Qmarkets has developed a reputation over the last 10 years for delivering one of the most comprehensive crowdsourcing software solutions in the world. Recognized by leading analysts such as Gartner, Forrester, MWD Advisors and Info-tech, Qmarkets offers unmatched technical and design flexibility to their extensive list of leading global clients; including Nestle, Ford, Lufthansa, Ab InBev, Philip Morris International, Bridgestone, and many more.
Qmarkets’ software offering extends beyond innovation management to include products focusing on process improvement, continuous improvement and operational excellence; open innovation with customers and business partners; technology scouting for enterprise M&A opportunities; and digital employee engagement.
The innovation management solutions offered by Qmarkets are completed by a commitment to customer success. This is shown by Qmarkets’ global team, and supported through best-practices, workshops, training, professional services, and more.
In my previous post, I gave a working definition of crowdsourcing and described two major crowdsourcing approaches: adding capacity and accessing expertise.
I also argued that although numerous organizations – including corporations, governmental agencies, and nonprofits – have used crowdsourcing to solve complex business problems, its wider adoption in the marketplace has been relatively slow.
Some of the reasons for the slow adoption of crowdsourcing are rooted in the very nature of the method. There is widespread uncertainty regarding which business problems crowdsourcing can and cannot solve. Besides, many organizations – especially those new to the approach – have trouble “matching” their specific problems to the crowdsourcing platform best suited for solving them. I’ll address these issues in future posts.
This infographic from ‘The Horizons Tracker’ offers an overview of what crowdsourcing activities are best suited to particular business and government needs. However, many companies still struggle to match crowdsourcing to their specific requirements.
Adopting crowdsourcing also implies change – most importantly, change in the organizational culture – and the change management process is never easy. In the following, I’ll cover this aspect of adopting crowdsourcing, as well highlight the common misconceptions you need to be aware of when dealing with this effective method.
Experts vs. Crowds – Which are More Reliable?
There are a few cultural factors slowing down the adoption of crowdsourcing as a practical problem-solving method. One of them is the lack of trust in the intellectual power of the crowd and its ability to tackle complex problems. Everyone would seem to agree that the proverbial “wisdom of crowds” can be applied to a ‘simple’ task – such as reporting potholes in the City of Boston, or creating a corporate logo. However, when it comes to answering a question that requires specialized knowledge, the benefits of crowdsourcing are called into question. Thus, many organizations prefer to turn to experts.
The general reluctancy to replace experts with a crowd naturally sits well with the experts themselves. The latter are often scornful of the idea that someone with no immediate experience in their field could solve a problem that they couldn’t. This sentiment was eloquently expressed in a 2010 Visions Magazine article by James A. Euchner:
One author went as far as calling crowds stupid, citing Brexit as a clear example of crowds’ “stupidity.”
The fundamental flaw in the notion that people participating in crowdsourcing campaigns are just a bunch of “amateurs” lies in the fact that, in real life, crowds are composed of experts. They might not be experts working for your company, or in your industry, or in your country – or be proficient in your area of expertise. But they’re experts, nonetheless. Moreover, academic research shows that a contributor’s likelihood of solving a problem increases according to the distance between his or her own field of technical expertise and the problem’s domain.
Pitting “experts” against “crowds” when speaking of crowdsourcing is completely counterproductive. Experts represent an essential part of any crowdsourcing campaign. Only experts can identify and properly formulate problems facing organizations. Only experts can evaluate incoming external submissions to select those that make sense. Only experts can successfully integrate external information with the knowledge available in-house. It’s at this midpoint in the problem-solving process – at the stage of generating potential solutions to the problem – that crowds are usually superior to experts.
Crowdsourcing and Brainstorming – What are they So Often Confused?
In recent years, the popularity of crowdsourcing in business literature and social media has skyrocketed. Unfortunately, along the way, the definition of crowdsourcing has lost its original meaning (see the previous post for more discussion on the definition of crowdsourcing). It became synonymous with just about every event happening online, especially if the event engaged a substantial number of people. Mixing crowdsourcing with online networking is a frequent mistake. That’s why we have oxymorons like “crowdsourcing on Facebook” (or Twitter, or Yelp).
Another frequently recurring mistake is the confusion of crowdsourcing with brainstorming. Although the two techniques share similar features, they’re far from identical.
These are the main differences:
Brainstorming
A question is presented to several people
As brainstorming sessions progress, people propose their own ideas or capitalize on the ideas of others
The question may become redefined in the process
Many folks mistakenly believe that if you replace a group of eight to ten participants – reportedly the optimal number of people for brainstorming – with a crowd of dozens or even hundreds, you’re not brainstorming but crowdsourcing.
Crowdsourcing
Requires independence of opinions, a feature of crowdsourcing highlighted in the classic James Surowiecki book, “The Wisdom of Crowds”
Members of the crowd – either individuals or small teams – provide input that is not influenced by others
It’s this aspect of crowdsourcing that results in the delivery of highly diversified, original, and often completely unexpected solutions to the problems at hand
In contrast, brainstorming almost always ends up with the group reaching a consensus. The acquisition of diversified opinion is one of the many benefits of crowdsourcing.
Crowdsourcing – The Need for a Clear Definition
Why is it important to keep a clear border between crowdsourcing and other problem-solving tools, such as brainstorming? Because if we want organizations to start using crowdsourcing in their day-to-day innovation practices, we need to ensure that they know the basic rules of applying the technique.
Take, for example, a 2017 Harvard Business Review article titled “Rethinking Crowdsourcing.” The article presents a review of 87 crowdsourcing projects aimed at generating new consumer product ideas. During each project, managers allowed participants to “like” each other’s submissions, a feature that absolutely doesn’t belong to crowdsourcing.
The result? Some contributors began to “like” each other’s ideas to the extent that the apparent value of their respective contributions became over-inflated. No wonder that when the submitted proposals were assessed by independent evaluators, no correlation was found between the most ‘likeable’ ideas and those that led to successful products.
The conclusion of the article was quite pessimistic: “It can be unwise to rely on the crowd.” Not an encouraging statement for those who want to start exploring what crowdsourcing can do for their organizations!
Crowdsourcing doesn’t need “rethinking.” What is needed is a clear understanding of what it is and how it should be properly used to create value. Those who know “the rules” will succeed in harnessing the proverbial wisdom of crowds. Those who don’t, won’t. It’s this simple.
To discover how Qmarkets’ innovation management software can help you gain the benefits of crowdsourcing and brainstorming initiatives, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today!
During these uncertain times, companies across all sectors are naturally focusing their efforts on ensuring continuity. At Qmarkets, we are doing everything we can to help our clients keep up innovation and collaboration levels to support their continuity strategies. Our staff are dedicated to ensuring that our services remain strong and that customer experience remains undisrupted. Read on to discover how Qmarkets is responding to the COVID-19 crisis.
Unprecedented Challenges
The global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are set to have a profound impact on businesses in a variety of ways. While every company is being affected differently, here are some of the most common disruptive challenges your company might encounter over the coming weeks and months:
More and more employees will be obliged to work remotely, or unable to work at all for long periods of time
Large-scale organizations will have to fundamentally adjust internal processes in order to adapt to new restrictions
Regular internal and external communications could take longer, as businesses adjust to the shift
Employees are likely to feel increasingly uncertain and disengaged as they navigate new work arrangement and family concerns
At Qmarkets, we understand the difficulties that these new challenges present. That’s why we’re committed to ensuring our offerings are primed to support the unique needs of customers at this time. We offer features that can help make the period of transition to new work processes easier, while also allowing our customers to identify and capitalize on new opportunities that might appear as a result of this crisis.
3 Ways Qmarkets will Support You Through This Crisis
1. Reliable Remote Support
Qmarkets has the knowledge, infrastructure, and culture that allow us to offer exceptional remote support. Should your company need additional assistance, each member of our skilled team is well equipped to respond immediately, even when working remotely. You can expect to receive the same prompt, effective, and friendly level of communication for all questions and concerns you might have during this period.
2. Bringing Innovation Online
As restrictions on the amount of people authorised to gather in physical spaces become more and more stringent, an increasing number of companies have been forced to cancel events, hackathons, and other meetings. However, where possible we are proudly working hand in hand with customers to help them facilitate their planned activities online.
Our platform facilitates collaboration between employees, customers, and suppliers, to help them innovate effectively to ensure their mission-critical goals are reached. The wide array of features on our platform can also help enterprises maintain productive communication with employees and boost their engagement around key initiatives. This can prove pivotal when it comes to maintaining employee support during this difficult period.
3. Standing With You All The Way
You can depend on Qmarkets to be a steadfast partner during the complex and challenging days ahead. While these circumstances might be daunting, we are confident that we can help your business to emerge from this episode stronger and more innovative than ever.
There is an old Chinese proverb that says, “Crisis is an opportunity riding on a dangerous wind”. During these days of global unrest – with news about the coronavirus and its severity changing daily – businesses across all sectors should keep the message of this proverb in mind. Although we are inevitably seeing the cancellation of business gatherings and events, along with increasingly severe “social distancing” restrictions concerning movement and the sharing of public spaces, this doesn’t mean that innovation at your company needs to be stifled.
Ironically, the same behaviours that fertilize ideas via innovation management can spread an infection that will endanger it. For the full article click here.
As of today March 19th, there have been over 200,000 confirmed COVID-19 infections and over 8,000 deaths. This has resulted in some of the most severe “social distancing” measures that most people have ever seen, with millions “self-isolating” across the globe. While this method has been proven to significantly decrease the spread of a virus, it also places a heavy burden on individuals.
At Qmarkets, we know that innovation doesn’t usually happen in isolation, but fortunately, there is a way for it to happen in self-isolation:
Four Ways to Support Business Continuity with Your Innovation Management Platform
1. Leverage Collective Intelligence to Support Business Contingency
It is becoming increasingly clear that the COVID-19 pandemic will result in one of the most disruptive economic episodes of our generation. Already we are seeing some worryingly severe consequences, with global stock market volatility, consumer retail hysteria, and whole airline fleets grounded indefinitely. Whatever disruptive challenges your company is facing, it is important to remember that your crowdsourcing platform can help you find a solution. Here are some individual scenarios that it might be useful to read through:
It’s important to remember that no industry will be entirely spared from the brunt of this pandemic. It will have a profound impact on virtually all aspects of business – from production processes, to HR regulations, to marketing strategies. By having a repeatable method in place to collaborate around ideas and refine solutions for challenges as and when they arise, you can help safeguard your enterprise.
To better ensure your company can respond efficiently to changing customer needs during the crisis, you may want to consider expanding your brainstorming initiatives to include external input. Q-open – Qmarkets’ dedicated open innovation tool – provides a great way to crowdsource ideas from customers, partners, academics, and other external stakeholders to support your brainstorming initiatives. The tool presents an invaluable way to get ahead of the curve when it comes to market trends and reprioritizations.
In addition to improving internal processes, it’s advisable to crowdsource ideas from all employees to find ways to streamline your workflows so that they are better equipped for crisis conditions. Q-optimize – Qmarkets’ sophisticated continuous improvement tool – offers exclusive features that will enable you to adapt your processes, increase productivity, as well as reduce wastage. All these benefits could contribute towards your business gaining a competitive edge during this uncertain period.
2. Ideate While Overcoming Social Distancing
Now that having a meeting in your office may no longer be an option, it’s critical to move your brainstorming activities online. You’re no doubt already familiar with using your Qmarkets platform to engage your employees on a companywide basis. However, you may not know that your system can provide an alternative to smaller collaboration sessions. The extensive features of the Qmarkets platform make it easy to setup individual campaigns where teams can brainstorm and collaborate – rather than meet up face to face in the boardroom.
The Qmarkets system makes it easy for users to submit and collaborate around new ideas online
It’s worth noting that managing online brainstorming with the Qmarkets platform affords unique benefits that offline brainstorming does not. For instance, you can:
Invite an unlimited number of people to take part – soliciting more ideas in the process
Overcome barriers caused by distance and language – Qmarkets’ offers multi-language support
Enable employees to submit suggestions anonymously – which could remove additional factors stifling ideation
Communication and collaboration are more crucial than ever during this precarious time. With the Qmarkets platform, you can ensure that the brainstorming sessions that could result in major disruptive ideas can continue uninterrupted.~
3. Don’t Let the Coronavirus Keep You from the Experts
During this period, it’s important to gain insights from external consultants and experts who may be able to help you assess the damage your company will face, and help you prepare contingency plans. Now that meeting face-to-face is pretty much out of the question, soliciting expert opinions for innovation in crisis conditions must increasingly take place online.
The good news is, your Qmarkets system makes it easy to leverage expert insights to combat the pandemic. Using the platform, you can:
Invite an unlimited number of experts to collaborate around key innovation projects and consult with them in parallel
Make sure that all experts have easy access to the information needed to make informed decisions around new innovation initiatives
Gain the information needed to make informed projections as to how your business will fare during and after the crisis
Expert opinions – be they from the business, academic, or healthcare sectors – could prove pivotal during this pandemic. With your platform, you can gain the expert information you need from a broad array of sources in an efficient and repeatable manner.
Of course, the same concept could be applied to a much larger gathering of experts, such as hackathons or events. No matter how big or small your collaboration session is, there’s no need to cancel it altogether – just take it onto the Qmarkets platform.
4. Maintain Employee Motivation through Active Communication
It’s only natural that a global pandemic will cause your employees to feel anxious, uncertain, and distracted – which could take a toll on your productivity levels. Many of your employees may also be required to work from home at this time, which can intensify disengagement. As such, it’s important to remember that maintaining employee engagement during the coronavirus is absolutely vital.
To help reassure employees that they are valued members of a strong organization that will get through the crisis, it’s advisable to run a variety of challenges that incentivize participation. These challenges should be planned in consultation with your HR and so that they have the maximum reach and effect.
These statistics from Hay Group exemplify the benefits of maintaining employee engagement during the coronavirus. During these precarious times, when uncertainty is high, keeping employees engaged and encouraged should be an even greater priority.
Some examples of the challenges your company could run include:
Idea Competitions: By offering employees recognition, tangible prizes, and/or financial incentives for contributing their ideas, you’re more likely to gain their input – regardless of the present circumstances. You might even consider running competitions designed to solicit ideas for ways the company could respond effectively to the pandemic. Qmarkets’ advanced gamification features offer a huge array of engaging ways you can run these competitions.
Community Recommendations: Create a campaign in which employees can contribute suggestions for ways the organization can better meet their needs during the crisis. This will give you an insight into where internal organizational efforts can best be concentrated.
Communicate Successes: A key ingredient to sustaining employee motivation is communicating successes regularly. By keeping users up to date with the strides your company is making towards key innovation targets, you can help reassure them and increase engagement levels. Your communications team should send out updates as regularly as possible.
Remember, your platform is a central hub where all employees can play an active role in your company’s innovation ecosystem. Innovation can be inspiring, and if your employees see that you are taking an active approach to tackle the dilemmas you are facing, it will naturally reduce anxiety.
Qmarkets to the Rescue: How We Will Support Your Enterprise During the Coronavirus Pandemic
As we have seen, by moving all innovation and collaboration activities online, you can help reassure your employees (not to mention their families), while minimizing the inevitable loss in productivity that will affect all businesses during this time. Qmarkets is 100% committed to helping your enterprise achieve this, regardless of the specific challenges you are currently facing. We already have an infrastructure, knowledge, and culture that allows our entire team to switch seamlessly to remote working, so your service will remain uninterrupted no matter what.
Currently, it’s not at all clear just how long the coronavirus pandemic will last, or what it’s full impact on the global business landscape will look like. However, it’s vital to remember that the crisis does not have to dampen the resilience and innovative spirit of your business. You can rest assured that Qmarkets will be there to support your ongoing efforts, as well as help you generate the disruptive ideas that will allow you to navigate through this storm and reach clearer waters.
In order to help your business during this crucial period, and maintain innovation in crisis conditions, we have developed a ‘Care Package’ that we are offering all new customers. The package will allow you to quickly setup a platform and start harnessing the wisdom of your employees against the challenges you are facing.
If you would like to learn more about the ‘Care Package’ we are offering companies to help them tackle the challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis, don’t hesitate to reach out to us today.
Since the 2004 publication of James Surowiecki’s highly influential book, The Wisdom of Crowds, the idea that large groups of people can be smarter than a few individuals, no matter how brilliant, has been gradually gaining prominence in academic circles, business communities, and public opinion.
Crowdsourcing is one of the most popular applications of this idea. Numerous organizations –including corporations, governmental agencies, and nonprofits – have adopted crowdsourcing as an innovation tool to help them address their most pressing business challenges.
However, the practical adoption of crowdsourcing has been far from seamless. Why? Firstly, there is widespread, often completely paralyzing, uncertainty over which business challenges can (or can’t) be solved by crowdsourcing. Secondly, many organizations – especially those new to crowdsourcing – have difficulty “matching” their specific problems to the crowdsourcing platform which is most suitable for solving them.
As a result, crowdsourcing is often used in a suboptimal way, and when the outcome proves disappointing, it is crowdsourcing itself that gets the blame for being ineffective. Periodic calls to “rethink” crowdsourcing regularly appear on the pages of the most respectful business publications.
There is no need to “rethink” crowdsourcing fundamentally. However, there is a need to create a clear understanding of what crowdsourcing is, and how it can be used to create value. Equally important, we need to clarify which crowdsourcing platforms and applications are available in the marketplace and how to apply them to specific crowdsourcing projects.
What Is Crowdsourcing: The Fundamentals
Let’s start with defining what crowdsourcing is. This will help us make a clear distinction between crowdsourcing and other knowledge-management tools – such as brainstorming, with which crowdsourcing is regularly confused.
The term “crowdsourcing” was first coined by journalist Jeff Howe in 2006. Howe also provided the original – and, arguably, still the most precise and comprehensive – definition of crowdsourcing, describing it as “the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.”
What is very important in this definition is that crowdsourcing is not just about a crowd; first and foremost, it’s about outsourcing a job, a point that is often forgotten in our conversations about crowdsourcing. Simply speaking, crowdsourcing is outsourcing a job to a crowd of external contributors. Or, to rewrite this statement as a simple formula:
Crowdsourcing = a job + a crowd.
Crowdsourcing: Two Approaches, Two Objectives
Now that we’ve answered the question “what is crowdsourcing”, we now need to address how the methodology can be used to solve business challenges. There are a huge variety of different “jobs” organizations can potentially outsource to a crowd of external contributors. However, it’s possible to reduce all crowdsourcing tasks down to fit within two major approaches: adding capacity and accessing expertise.
Both types have characteristic features and follow their own rules of engagement. Understanding the difference between the two is very important because the lack of such understanding frequently results in the failure of crowdsourcing campaigns. It would, therefore, be useful to discuss these two types of crowdsourcing separately.
Adding the Capacity for Capturing Genius
Crowdsourcing by adding capacity is the process of splitting a large job into small, usually identical, parts. A crowd is then assigned to take care of these broken-down tasks, with the whole job being completed quicker as a result.
Another term for “adding capacity” is “microtasking.” Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and ClickWorker represent the most prominent microtasking marketplaces, although certain reservations have been expressed recently about the quality of the Mechanical Turk’s deliverables.
Amazon’s ‘adding capacity’ crowdsourcing initiatives extend far beyond their ‘Mechanical Turk’ system. Recently, Amazon announced plans to create a next-gen Mars rover using crowdsourced insights to inform the design.
The members of the “adding capacity” crowd usually don’t need any special training to perform the job. However, it’s the responsibility of the project sponsor to provide the crowd with clear directions on how each part of the job should be completed. It’s also the sponsor’s responsibility to design a robust protocol for assembling the whole job from its crowdsourced sub-components.
Organizations use the adding capacitycrowdsourcing approach when the desired job requires an amount of resources that the organization simply doesn’t have. Take, for example, the Common Voice project by Mozilla. Common Voice is a publicly available database that contains around 1,400 hours of recorded human speech from more than 42,000 contributors in 18 different languages. Obviously, Mozilla couldn’t have created such a database using its 1,200 employees alone.
In most cases, the larger the crowd that is available for adding capacity crowdsourcing, the better. For example, adding extra contributors to the Common Voice project would have allowed Mozilla to expand the database – both in terms of recorded hours of speech and the number of covered languages. In this respect, adding capacity crowdsourcing is clearly different from its accessing expertise counterpart. A more sophisticated version of adding capacity crowdsourcing, the “flash organization” concept, has been developed to deal with complex, open-ended tasks that can’t be easily broken into smaller identical parts.
Accessing Expertise to Power Innovation
The “accessing expertise” approach to crowdsourcing is essentially the process of exploring the proverbial “wisdom of crowds.” It’s the methodology of collecting expertise, creativity, and skills from anywhere outside the organization. There seems to be no established academic term for “accessing expertise” crowdsourcing, although “crowdsourced innovation” comes very close.
Organizations use “accessing expertise” crowdsourcing not when they need to perform a modular job, but when they want to solve a problem that prevents the organization from achieving an important objective, like designing a new product or optimizing performance.
When launching an “accessing expertise” crowdsourcing campaign, the campaign sponsor must clearly define the problem and explicitly outline the requirements that all successful solutions are expected to meet.
In contrast to “adding capacity”, members of the “accessing expertise” crowd should have the relevant experiences or insights to allow them to solve the problem – and the more sophisticated the problem, the more experienced the members of the crowd are expected to be. Moreover, these days, many complex technical and business problems require completely novel, unexpected, and sometimes unorthodox solutions – meaning that the pool of incoming contributions should include many different ways of solving the problem, out of which only one or a few may turn out to be viable.
The “accessing expertise” crowdsourcing approach works best when it targets crowds that are diverse. This is because the more diverse the crowd, the more varied and creative the insights and ideas gleaned from it. On the other hand, the crowd size by itself is, perhaps, a secondary consideration for “accessing expertise” crowdsourcing. Sure, larger crowds are usually more diverse, but a relatively small yet very diverse crowd can be remarkably successful when tackling the most challenging problems.
“Accessing expertise” crowdsourcing can be further divided into idea generation and problem-solving, which could also be called the “bottom-up” and “top-down” modes of crowdsourcing respectively. Understanding the difference between the two is very important– and this will be addressed in a separate post.
For now, hopefully this post has helped to give you a clearer understanding of crowdsourcing, and how it might be applied to the challenges you’re facing within your respective organizations.
Looking to inject ideation into your company’s innovation process, but not sure where to start? This is the blog you’ve been searching for…
As French author Victor Hugo famously wrote, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” These words ring especially true in the business world, where a single idea can mean the difference between success and failure.
However the process of utilizing ideas – often referred to as ideation – poses a variety of different challenges. While some companies struggle to generate ideas at all, others generate so many that they struggle to select the right ones to implement. Developing your ideas to the point that they become realistic for implementation is another issue altogether.
The good news, is that there are a variety of specialized tools and techniques that can help you overcome these specific challenges. Choosing the right one for your company can be difficult, but the details of this post should make that decision much more easy…
Why Innovation Should Never be Pre-Packaged
We should mention from the outset that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach when it comes to innovation. Each of the methods that we cover can be leveraged on their own to great effect, regardless of how sophisticated your innovation set up is. Many companies fall victim to the myth that innovation is all about large-scale projects – requiring a substantial amount of time, resources, and risk taking. Therefore, because they find the prospect so daunting, they fail to innovate at all – which can, in fact, be far riskier. As we’ll see, no matter how much or how little you want to invest in innovation, there are always practical solutions that are readily available.
It should be noted that regardless of what strategies or tools you leverage to foster innovation at your business, they should target as many employees as possible. The collective intelligence of your employees is a treasure trove of growth-driving potential.
5 Popular Corporate Innovation Tools and Tactics
Level 1: Emails and Basic Office Tools
So you’ve decided that you want to start gathering ideas from your employees to help you fight back against your competitors – great, but where to start? Fortunately, you could simply send them an email asking for ideas or insights. When the ideas start coming through, you can then place them in a spreadsheet and categorize them by whatever criteria you see fit. This is the first phase towards unlocking the innovation potential of your employees. It can also be set up in a matter of minutes.
However, the limitations of this rudimentary approach will soon become very clear. If you have more than a 100 or so employees, the amount of ideas you receive will quickly become unmanageable.
When it comes to initiating a structure in which these ideas can be developed, tracked, and brought to life, basic office tools are wholly inadequate. What’s more, these tools won’t enable you to gather key metrics needed to assess the ROI an innovation initiative has gained.
Level 2: Social Collaboration Tools
If you want to take your corporate innovation efforts a step beyond the basic necessities, enterprise social tools can be a great place to start. Popular platforms like Jive, Yammer, and Workplace from Facebook can help you create dynamic environments where collaboration can take place.
Here are a few of the benefits these social collaboration tools offer:
Streamlined Brainstorming: Enterprise social platforms make it easy to create dedicated groups where authorized users can take part in brainstorming sessions.
Employee Approval Polls: Some networking tools enable admins to set up opinion polls. These can be used to gain an overview of which proposed innovation initiatives will gain the most employee support – eliminating an element of uncertainty and risk.
Ways to Collect Groundbreaking ‘Random’ Ideas: Often times, the most groundbreaking ideas can emerge spontaneously from places you’d least expect. Enterprise social tools can provide a space where employees can submit feedback whenever they like, on whatever topic they like.
Although enterprise social networking tools are useful for soliciting general suggestions and feedback, they don’t offer a way to transform ‘raw’ ideas into new projects, products, and services.
A wide range of collaboration platforms can be used to facilitate ideation and communication for innovation projects.
What’s more, while networking tools are handy for promoting internal collaboration, they aren’t at all suited for open innovation projects – where ideas are crowdsourced from customers, partners, and other external stakeholders.
Level 3: Hackathons and Other Competitive Innovation Tactics
The most effective innovation activities often have a competitive aspect to them. Such activities can include hackathons – where participants work in teams to solve challenges in sprint sessions – or ‘Shark Tank’ style idea pitching tournaments. Incentivizing employees with prizes or the chance to see their vision realized is a great way to stimulate ideation. Innovation competitions can also foster comradery and bring out the intrapreneurial spirit of your employees. When Bill Gates was asked what advice he’d give to entrepreneurs looking to attain his level of success, he said, “Surround yourself with people who challenge you, teach you, and push you to be your best…” Competitions, if managed correctly, will create conditions where employees can push themselves, synthesize creative solutions, and become more productive contributors within your company’s innovation culture.
The time-sensitive nature of hackathons – and other competitive innovation events – can be both a strength and a weakness. On the one hand, concentrating innovation efforts to a single period of time within the year is a great way to remove the barriers that would otherwise impede output (scheduling clashes, problems imposed by distance, low engagement levels, etc).
Also, when working under time constraints, internal and external stakeholders will be forced to think creatively under pressure and contribute more ideas than they otherwise would in innovation initiatives that span weeks or months.
When planning your innovation pitch, you should always expect the unexpected – as this clip from ‘Silicon Valley’ demonstrates…
On the other hand, restricting innovation efforts to one time period – rather than splitting it up throughout the year – runs the risk that ideas will be limited in scope or misaligned with overarching company goals as they change.
it’s worth remembering that a truly fertile innovation ecosystem is one that can go beyond the digital sphere and bring great thinkers together in the real world. As vital as it is to connect internal and external stakeholders via an online hub, running activities in a shared physical space can help promote engagement, uncover game-changing ideas, and add a human touch to your innovation endeavours.
It’s also important to point out that, regardless of how sophisticated you make your ongoing innovation processes, hackathons and other competitive initiatives should remain part of your strategy. Combining long and short term approaches to innovation can help you gain the best possible returns.
Level 4: The DIY Ideation System
The hallmark of a company at an advanced stage of innovation sophistication is one that is able to manage multiple company-wide ideation efforts from a single location. To do this, many companies opt for the DIY approach. Typically, this involves adapting a company portal to include basic collaboration and ideation functionality. Such adaptions can sometimes be achieved through add-ons and plugins -like WordPress and other content management systems. However, developers are generally needed to make the necessary adjustments.
The obvious appeal of the DIY approach is that it involves building upon what users are already familiar with. Despite this, stretching the capabilities of your existing online infrastructure to better accommodate innovation may present major difficulties, and can often prove to be more costly in the long run.
Here are just a few of the pitfalls you should be aware of:
Excessive Time and Resource Requirements: Remember, your developers will likely need to spend a significant amount of time working on the coding of your system, ironing out bugs, and diverting resources that could more productively be used elsewhere.
Lack of Dedicated Support: Your DIY ideation system will need ongoing maintenance and user support to be able to facilitate initiatives efficiently. Without the dedicated customer support that third-party innovation software vendors provide, you’ll need to rely on your own staff to keep your system up and running.
Greater Risk: Even if you manage to get your DIY platform off the ground, there is a high chance that it will eventually be misaligned with your company’s innovation goals as they grow in scale and complexity. Also, if your platform lacks the sophisticated engagement capabilities afforded by innovation management software vendors – gamified features, personalized notifications, etc. – there is a higher chance that employees will eventually stop using it.
A DIY ideation system can serve as a basic way to unify company innovation efforts – a step beyond launching disconnected projects designed for short-term goals. However, it’s impossible for a DIY system to achieve the level of sophistication that dedicated innovation management vendors have built up over the last 10 years.
Level 5: Bringing Everything Together – Using Corporate Innovation Tools Within a Dedicated Platform
Simply put, to ensure your company is able to innovate in a way that keeps ROI high and risk low, there is no substitute for a dedicated online platform. Comparing basic ‘Level 1’ office tools to such a platform is akin to comparing a wagon wheel to a jet engine. The latter will get you to where you need to go much quicker!
The Qmarkets idea management platform makes it possible to launch a huge array of innovation initiatives, while making sure that each aligns with overarching company goals. Using the Qmarkets platform, you can:
✓ Define unique automated idea development workflows based on industry-proven best practices and tailored to your unique requirements
✓ Launch targeted innovation campaigns where users can submit their ideas, as well as comment and vote on ideas submitted by their colleagues
✓ Facilitate hackathons, idea tournaments, and other time-sensitive innovation competitions – the platform offers an array of gamified methods for incentivising user participation
✓ Launch open innovation initiatives to gain invaluable insights from customers, partners, and other external stakeholders
✓ Use a wide assortment of reporting tools to track KPIs and assess the ROI of your ongoing innovation efforts
Qmarkets’ collective intelligence suite is tailored to fit seamlessly into your strategic innovation management ecosystem.
To help ensure your projects yield the best possible results, Qmarkets complements its products with a commitment to customer success. A dedicated team is available to offer support, guidance, and expertise on your innovation management journey.
Never underestimate the power of small beginnings. Whether you are taking your first tentative steps towards gathering ideas via email, planning a corporate hackathon, or building a DIY ideation system, each of these activities will reveal new and exciting ways to develop future initiatives. Like evolution, innovation is a perpetual process. With tenacity, the right tactics, and an inclusive approach, you can help your organization climb to the top of the food chain and become the apex innovator.
To discover how Qmarkets can help you leverage powerful corporate innovation tools and tactics at your enterprise, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today!
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