Increased Ease of Use for Innovation Team Members, Ease of Collaboration Across Functional Groups, and Delivering Relevant Information in the Right Place at the Right Time Provides Increased Focus on Activities that Push the Company Forward
MINNEAPOLIS and LONDON—September 23, 2015—Sopheon, the international provider of software, expertise, and best practices for Enterprise Innovation Performance, announced today the latest version of its Accolade Enterprise Innovation Management (EIM) solution.
After 15+ years delivering innovation management solutions to Fortune 1000 clients, Sopheon’s experience backs conventional wisdom that sustainable innovation is very difficult without cross-functional adoption of the enterprise process. In fact, studies have shown that high-performing organizations successfully execute on cross-functional work activities two to three times more often than low performers.1 Our strong belief that our Accolade solution can play an active role in improving this adoption has been substantiated in practice over the years, and as a continuation of commitment to our customer’s success, we have dedicated the Accolade 10.1 release to this purpose. Our desire is to raise the industry standard on ‘user engagement’ in the innovation process. By freeing knowledge workers from unnecessary bureaucracy, wasted administrative cycles and complex processes, they can now spend their time focused on activities that push the company forward.
Making it intuitive: Not all of the functions and roles involved in the enterprise process participate in the process in the same way. Some – like initiative or project leaders, or resource managers – ‘live’ in all aspects of the software day to day and become super-users. For others who are focused on specific areas – team members, for example, who mainly access the system to complete a deliverable or task – usability and intuitiveness are key indicators for successful adoption. Accolade release 10.1 changes the game in these areas; training requirements for all users are minimal, irrespective of how extensively they are required to participate in the process. Training is largely focused on education around the decision-making process that is being implemented, and how team member activities are linked to and affect those decisions.
George Coulston PhD, VP and CTO of Vesuvius, commented:
“Accolade’s cross-functional ease of use played an important role in speed of implementation and high adoption of our process.”
Encouraging communication and collaboration: Accolade release 10.1 delivers a unique environment for cross-functional collaboration. Teams can easily interact dynamically with one another from within their regular work streams
Providing insights to get the job done: People waste cycles gathering information, and are often not aware of what useful information is available to them. By applying patented knowledge management principles, Accolade release 10.1 provides insights and information at the right time and in the right place in a way that saves time, increases agility, speed and efficiency, and helps make smarter decisions based on more complete facts.
Don Sarno, Chief Operating Officer at Sopheon says,
“New capabilities in this release will save significant time for project managers and resource and product planners every time a plan is created or changes. The smart linking between plans and resources also provides real-time updates and meaningful views for managers to make on-the-fly-decisions about what is really required to drive initiatives forward.”
Accolade release 10.1 is available immediately for 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.
1Cooper, R.G. and Edgett, S.J., Lean, Rapid and Profitable New Product Development, Product Development Institute
Sopheon and Accolade are trademarks of Sopheon plc.
About Sopheon
Sopheon partners with customers to provide complete Enterprise Innovation Performance 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.
