The world continues to evolve at a striking pace and business needs are rapidly shifting to keep up with advances in digital technology and fast changing consumer demands. For companies that rely on innovation and product development for growth and competitive differentiation, the urgency to transform functional silos into innovation-centric, interconnected organizational structures is growing. The realization rate of strategic initiatives like these has historically been very low and Gartner is recommending that business leaders consider investing in strategy execution software to close what they refer to as the ever-persistent strategy-execution gap.
The importance and role of enterprise-grade software in the successful execution of strategy was highlighted in the 2016 Market Guide for Strategy Execution Software authored by analysts Donna Fitzgerald and Teresa Jones. Sopheon is proud to have been named as a representative vendor in this report, which strongly validates Sopheon's position that new approaches and increased agility are required for implementing strategic change in today's digital age.
The direction and roadmap of Sopheon's software solution continue to reflect these shifting marketplace needs and to meet the demand for a software system that supports transformational organizational and structural change. Accolade 11.0 – released in early November 2016 – delivers further enhancements for empowering organizations to realize their business strategy. It focuses on increased agility and user engagement by removing the unnecessary “friction” prevalent in most complex global companies caused by inefficient processes, lack of cross-functional collaboration and communication, and the huge effort required to adapt internal structures and organization in response to market changes.
With more than 15 years of partnering with some of the most innovative companies around the globe, Sopheon and Accolade customers such as Parker Hannifin, P&G, PepsiCo, ConAgra Brands and BASF have seen firsthand the impact and value that software can bring to strategy realization and organizational transformation. The learnings and best practices gained from these relationships have driven many of the new capabilities in Accolade 11.0 with its ambition to favorably impact the realization of corporate initiatives.
Enhancements and new features in Accolade 11.0 offer:
- Further support for transformational change. Fresh capabilities introduce new levels of agility and velocity by expanding the power of Accolade to map to both enterprise process change and operational changes.
- Quick and dynamic information management. Accolade empowers teams to quickly and easily self-configure their work environment, dramatically increasing their ability to dynamically manage data for more efficient processes and decision-making.
- Increased security. Advancements in security make it easier and safer to embed intellectual property-intensive activity with suppliers and partners into the enterprise system without compromise. Additionally, security has been expanded to allow the most qualified knowledge workers to be assigned to initiatives without risking compliance with data restrictions or regulations based on role or location.
As Sopheon customers aspire to make corporate agility a reality, Accolade increasingly serves as the system of record supporting key decisions across the organization and automating and managing the innovation work of the business. The ease of use, simplicity of administration, and valuable insights Accolade provides to users on a daily basis are critical factors in the successful execution of strategy and the achievement of business goals driven by the innovations our system supports.
Andy Michuda, CEO, stated: “The constant pull between ‘responsible, safe, secure' and ‘speed, ease of use, smart' is evident in every client who is evolving new operating models to compete in today's digital market. We feel good about the user community excitement in support of our vision and Accolade roadmap in addressing these evolving challenges.”
Accolade 11.0 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.
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