Sopheon’s Accolade 11.1 Empowers Enterprise Strategy-Execution Capability - Sopheon

Latest Release Bolsters Visible Connection between Strategy and Operational Activities for Increased Alignment and Employee Engagement

MINNEAPOLIS and LONDON—February 23, 2017—Sopheon, the international provider of software, expertise, and best practices for Enterprise Innovation Management, today released the latest version of its Accolade^® Enterprise Innovation Management (EIM) solution.

Operating in a dynamic, fast-paced business environment, established market leaders are looking for ways to innovate at the pace of small companies, while leveraging the scale advantages of a larger organization. They are challenged to execute strategic plans for digital transformation, speed and business agility in the face of historically low rates of successful strategy execution. Research by the Economist shows that on average only 56% of strategic initiatives are considered successful.¹

According to industry analyst Gartner, among the primary reasons for the low success rate of strategic initiatives is poor transparency to the goals of the strategy, and the inability to ensure that everyone working on accomplishing those goals has visibility to interdependencies and progress.² Gartner recommends that companies strengthen capabilities like continuous, almost real-time decision-making, agility in response to change, and multi-directional communication across the organization.³

Dr. Steven Moskowitz, Senior Principal of Strategic Technology, Innovation Management at Entegris, Inc. stated: “Dynamic communication and dataflow through divisions, into business units and across operations teams is something Entegris views as vital to innovation. Increasing the visibility of plans and decisions is just one of the ways that Accolade is supporting our organization’s aspirations.”

Supporting the long-term success and relevance of customers is the foundation of Sopheon’s mission. Sopheon has been deeply engaged with and committed to helping its customers increase their business agility in the face of market disruptions.

According to Andy Michuda, CEO of Sopheon: “Many companies in the market are challenged with communicating strategy across their organization and as a result face a gap in alignment around strategic goals, and low employee engagement. By closing this gap, all stakeholders in the process can more clearly understand what needs to be done, what role they play in making that happen, and what interdependencies need to be managed. Thanks to collaboration and input from our clients on the latest Accolade release, we expect our customers to significantly increase their rate of strategy realization.”

Accolade 11.1 includes new and enhanced capabilities that:

• Ease communication of the strategy, providing clear visibility to the connections between high-level strategy and underlying execution activities.
• Connect organizational and functional silos for alignment of initiatives, people, and resources.
• Surface meaningful connections and interdependencies determined by role and business need. For example, executives can quickly see which programs, projects and activities support the high-level strategic goals they are responsible for achieving, and program and brand managers can easily view the interconnected projects/activities they need to manage and coordinate.
• Increase user engagement and build morale by communicating the “why” for team members, making it easy for them to see how their projects fit into the broader corporate strategy and therefore making their work more meaningful and impactful.
• Increase ease of use and efficiency in daily work streams and collaborative activities, further strengthening process adoption and ensuring more informed, faster decision making.

Accolade 11.1 is available immediately for upgrade, purchase and implementation. All Sopheon Accolade customers who are current on Maintenance and Support program fees are entitled to receive updates to their currently licensed products for this and future release upgrades at no additional cost.

¹ Why Good Strategies Fail: Lessons for the C-Suite The Economist, 2013
² Market Guide for Enterprise PPM Software, Gartner, 2015
³ Market Guide for Strategy Execution Software, Gartner, 2016
Sopheon^® and Accolade^® are trademarks of Sopheon.

About Sopheon
Sopheon partners with customers to provide complete Enterprise Innovation Management solutions including patented software, expertise, and best practices to achieve exceptional long-term revenue growth and profitability. Sopheon’s Accolade solution provides unique, fully-integrated coverage for the entire innovation management and new product development lifecycle, including strategic innovation planning, roadmapping, idea and concept development, process and project management, portfolio management and resource planning. Sopheon’s solutions have been implemented by over 200 customers with over 60,000 users in over 50 countries. Sopheon is listed on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange.