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Wilmington, Delaware — Planbox, a pioneer in Agile Innovation Management solutions, opened its Pi (Planbox innovation) portal to members of its community to inspire dialogue and lessons learned in celebration of International Women’s Day 2021. 

The challenge ran through March, and invited Planbox staff and customers to share personal stories about women who inspire them. For every idea and comment submitted in Pi throughout the duration of the challenge, a donation was made to women’s charities of Planbox’s choosing.

Many stories highlighted inspirational family members including mothers, sisters, aunts, and grandmothers. Some Pi members chose to headline historical figures such as Princess Diana and Rosa Parks, who continue to inspire old and young generations alike. 

Here are a few of the stories shared by the Planbox community:

Sabrina’s sister, Samantha

Sabrina’s inspiration comes from her sister, Samantha. Sabrina labelled her a “healthcare hero” for her work in the COVID-19 unit at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. She shared a testament of her sister’s strong character with us: “She struggled through this last year, among all the other frontline and essential workers. She is my role model because she works so hard and always tries to make the world a better place through empathy for others and passion for nursing. She is my toughest critic, my strongest motivator, and my best friend.”

The wonderful women in Rudolf’s life

Like some other respondents, Rudolf had trouble picking just one inspirational woman in his life, so he highlighted a few. Firstly, his wife, who  “shows so much love and affection to family and friends, always trying to be better and never giving up on anyone, no matter the circumstance.” His mom, who “always pushed me and my brother to work hard — finishing second was not an option”. Speaking of an ophthalmologist who saved his eyesight at a young age, Rudolf wrote: “these are women I would go to battle for and with,” and goes on to describe other special colleagues that he works with and has worked with who have made a positive impact on his life.

Nanar’s supermom

Nanar considers her mom to be the person she looks up to. She shared that her mom “always helps others, she’s always full of life and smiles, and always ready to take on life’s challenges”. Nanar considers herself lucky to have someone like that in her life, and she’s inspired to be that kind of mother for her child one day. 

A perpetual pursuit of inspiration for Ludwig’s daughters

Similar to many fathers, Ludwig tries to teach his two daughters that their opportunities in life are limitless, and they can accomplish anything. He writes: “I always find myself making sure they know they can accomplish anything so I share whatever I can in way of stories, quotes, and movies from women who have that power in full display. I love to speak to them and see their reactions as their eyes glow, and you can see how much they love to see strong and inspirational women win, and accomplish what may have seen to be an impossible feat”. He has many women in his life who feed this continuous source of inspiration for his daughters and future generations to help make this world a better place.

Gilbert owes it all to strong women in his life

Growing up in a war-torn country, Gilbert shares that he was raised by his grandmother until the age of 7. Both the influence of his grandmother and mother had on him made him search for a partner who carries the same values, and he shared with us that he lucked out. “Strong, intelligent, opinionated, and not to mention drop dead gorgeous. My debt for who I am today is now owed to my wife for making me want to be the best man, father, and human because of the person she is… she is my rock and my hard place and I love being caught between them. I bow to the women in my life and in retrospect love and respect all women,” Gilbert gushes.

Barbara’s Hero

Barbara wrote about her mom and how she has always felt that helping others was important. A recent event reminded her that there is always a way to help if you use your creativity. Barbara shared: “At 80 years, living alone with a pandemic raging, she found out that someone from her ladies group had brought her very ill husband home from the hospital at 5 pm. It was already getting dark and she doesn’t drive after dark, but she was determined to get them something for a welcome home dinner. So… what to do… it just won’t be right for them not to have a hot meal and there was no way she was going to allow her friend to cook dinner. Try something new and stretch — she went to her phone, and looked up DOORDASH. She had seen ads for them on TV, but had never tried to use the app. Thankfully the app is easy, and she successfully ordered a nice dinner for them. When she told me the story, she was excited she had learned something new and helped her friend.”

Lorraine

Lucas described his mom, Lorraine, as having the toughest job in the world: being a mom. He added that his two brothers, his father, and male dog compounded this challenge: “She had to raise 3 boys (she would argue 4 if we consider my father) and living with just men can be challenging. Even the dog is a male, so that makes it five to some extent! Anyway, she’s incredible. More than incredible. She’s like the giving tree. She just gives, gives, gives. If you look up selfless in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of her. It’s amazing when you think about it: she didn’t seek a glamorous career, nor fame, nor money. None of it. Although she could have with her wits, that’s not what she sought. She wanted to have kids and raise them to be the best versions of themselves. And that’s what she did. She had a goal in mind, she reached it, and she’s proud of it. You could say she achieved her own kind of fame, the only kind that really matters, because to me she’s a driven, successful, and inspiring woman, and above all, my hero. I can only hope to do for my kids one day what she has done, and continues to do, for me my whole life.”

Princess Diana

Aleksandra’s inspirational female figure is Princess Diana. She pointed out her passion for giving to others and highlighted that she donated to numerous charities over the course of her life. The spotlight of Aleksandra’s idea was the mention of Princess Diana’s priority to support women around the globe, not just within her own community. Aleksandra described it in her own words, “She would visit centers and sit with female homeless youth, nurses around her said she was ‘never patronizing’ or detached, she truly cared about them and wanted to help them become strong women themselves. And despite her own struggles and depression, Diana stayed true to her beliefs through her cheeky humor, and natural charm, and continued to sprinkle love and kindness around the world. Diana is a true inspiration to me and an example of love and kindness.”

With the help of the Planbox community, we have donated a total of $500 to the charities below:

Impacted Charities

Catalyst is a global nonprofit working with some of the world’s most powerful CEOs and leading companies to build workplaces that work for women. Their mission focuses on 4 key aspects: Increasing the representation of women from racially and ethnically marginalized groups, in corporate leadership and promoting equal access to career opportunities, developing solutions for women and underrepresented groups to have full participation and equal opportunity in the 21st-century workplace, deepening understanding of workplace inclusion and equipping global companies to remedy inequities across intersections of identity (such as gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, or gender identity), and engaging men to leverage their influence to advocate for gender equity in the workplace.

Womankind Worldwide is a global women’s rights organization. Their aims include ending all forms of violence against women and girls, advancing women’s economic rights, and strengthening women’s influence and decision-making power. Womankind Worldwide strengthens and supports women’s rights organisations and movements and resources they need to challenge oppression and change the lives of women, in the home, the workplace and the communities they live in.

Dress for Success is a global not-for-profit organization that empowers women to achieve economic independence by providing a network of support, professional attire and the development tools to help women thrive in work and in life. The mission of Dress for Success is to empower women to achieve economic independence by providing a network of support, professional attire and the development tools to help women thrive in work and in life. They believe that every woman has the right to realize her full potential and achieve financial independence in a more egalitarian world.

For all the latest news and updates, follow Planbox on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

About Planbox

Planbox is the pioneering agile innovation management platform software provider for full lifecycle Innovation Portfolio Management, Emerging Tech Empowerment and Ecosystem Enablement. Planbox is also recognized by Forrester as the top-ranking innovation management platform in the marketplace, having received the highest score in strategy and current offering in The Forrester Wave: Innovation Management Platforms, Q1 2020.

As the most robust and scalable platform on the market, we empower our clients to discover, collaborate and capitalize on the best strategically aligned concepts with their ecosystem of employees, customers, suppliers, partners, startups, academia, government and the general public to pursue breakthrough innovations, create a sustainable continuous improvement program, build a framework for corporate venturing and action on consumer insights.

With over 20 years of domain expertise, 400 enterprise deployments, 5M participants and $10B of realized ROI for customers, Planbox’s AI-powered cloud-based agile innovation solutions accelerate business outcomes for some of the world’s most recognized brands, including Whirlpool, Dow, Novartis, ExxonMobil, Cargill, Bobcat, Honeywell and Sun Life.

In 2020, Planbox acquired IdeaConnection, the best-in-class open innovation platform and expert solver network. IdeaConnection by Planbox provides access to millions of diverse and brilliant minds and a global network of 20,000+ multidisciplinary experts and world-class facilitators in more than 180 countries, with an 80% solve rate for open innovation services such as public and confidential challenges, crowdsourced tech scouting and prior art search.

The post Planbox Sparks Conversations Around Inspiring Women appeared first on Planbox.

Wilmington, Delaware — Planbox, a pioneer in agile innovation management solutions, has been selected by Anglo American, a leading global mining company, to manage innovation, business improvement, data analytics, lean six sigma and continuous improvement initiatives in Brazil.

Prior to Planbox, Anglo American lacked a transparent central system to capture and process insights. As a result, opportunities to create valuable solutions were lost. Today, Anglo American has completely pivoted, leveraging the top-ranked platform in the Forrester Wave: Innovation Management Platforms, Q1, 2020 to manage internal idea development workflows and communicate all innovation initiatives to every participant. 

Planbox’s interactive and inclusive agile innovation platform is helping the world-class mining conglomerate to inspire creativity and empower cocreation between employees and various business units throughout the organization. Innovation accessibility, visibility, and engagement are all key objectives for Anglo American, and keeping users informed of the who, what, where, when, why and how behind every initiative is fostering a more resilient culture rooted in collaboration, learning and trust.

“One of the foundations of collaboration is innovation, and we were looking for a platform to enable quick and easy communications between all people in the business to understand which initiatives are going on, to exchange ideas, to improve existing initiatives, or to create new ones. Planbox is up to the task of being this platform for Anglo American Brazil and it is helping us improve this collaboration among our teams,” said Hamilton Oliveira, Business Improvement and Innovation Interim Manager at Anglo American Brazil.

Planbox has worked closely with Anglo American, adapting the platform to its unique processes to create customized workflows that have now helped unearth hundreds of concepts, some of which have translated into game-changing innovations in areas ranging from moisture measurement, community safety and readiness, and transportation and logistics.

“Based on knowledge sharing and project management, Planbox has helped cultural transformation in Continuous Improvement and Innovation. Projects at different levels of work and complexity are in the same system, creating an environment of ownership, results, and reporting aligned with our company drivers. In the first year alone, more than 500 initiatives underpin the process to deliver the business expectation,“ said Guilherme Ferreira, Business Improvement Coordinator at Anglo American Brazil.

To learn more, download the Anglo American Innovation Case Study.

For all the latest news and updates, follow Planbox on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

About Planbox

Planbox is the pioneering agile innovation management platform software provider for full lifecycle Innovation Portfolio Management, Emerging Tech Empowerment and Ecosystem Enablement. Planbox is recognized by Forrester as the top-ranking innovation management platform in the marketplace, having received the highest score in strategy and current offering in the Forrester Wave: Innovation Management Platforms, Q1, 2020. 

As the most robust and scalable platform on the market, we empower our clients to discover, collaborate and capitalize on the best strategically aligned concepts with their ecosystem of employees, customers, suppliers, partners, startups, academia, government and the general public to pursue breakthrough innovations, create a sustainable continuous improvement program, build a framework for corporate venturing and action on consumer insights. 

With over 20 years of domain expertise, 400 enterprise deployments, 5M participants and $10B of realized ROI for customers, Planbox’s AI-powered cloud-based agile innovation solutions accelerate business outcomes for some of the world’s most recognized brands, including Whirlpool, Dow, Novartis, ExxonMobil, Cargill, Bobcat, Honeywell and Sun Life.

In 2020, Planbox acquired IdeaConnection, the best-in-class open innovation platform and expert solver network. IdeaConnection by Planbox provides access to millions of diverse and brilliant minds and a global network of 20,000+ multidisciplinary experts and world-class facilitators in more than 180 countries, with an 80% solve rate for open innovation services such as public and confidential challenges, crowdsourced tech scouting and prior art search.

About Anglo American

Anglo American is a leading global mining company and their products are the essential ingredients in almost every aspect of modern life. Their portfolio of world-class competitive operations, development projects and undeveloped resources, provides many of the metals and minerals that enable a cleaner, greener, more sustainable world and that meet the fast growing consumer-driven demands of developed and maturing economies. With their people at the heart of our business, they use innovative practices and the latest technologies to mine, process, move and market their products to their customers – and to discover new resources – safely and sustainably.

The post Planbox Selected by Anglo American to Create a Culture of Innovation appeared first on Planbox.

Good news is 2021 will be shorter since Earth is spinning faster and faster, scientists say. Bad news is  the pace of technology advancements is speeding up exponentially, and it’s getting harder to stay in the game. Increasingly, organizations are facing  immense pressure to stay hypervigilant, to be proactive, and to discover new ways to reinvent themselves. Further compounding this challenge are the unforeseen events of 2020; now, more and more executives are plagued with sleepless nights as their organization’s future spirals into the unknown. 

Twenty years ago, the Agile Manifesto revolutionized the planning and execution of work. Twenty years later, many organizations still rely on this approach to develop the agility that allows them to turn on a dime, deliver results, and satisfy customers. However, our fast-moving world requires a fresh, modernized mindset — specifically one that builds on agile and enables organizations to proactively shape their future. This is what the Future-Fit Manifesto is all about. To adopt this mindset, organizations should start embracing the following four values:

Collaborative culture over individuals and interactions

Innovative systems over working software

Discovering opportunities over customer collaboration

Creating alternate futures over responding to change

It’s important to note that while there’s value in the items on the right, we should value the items on the left more.

These simple yet imperative values are the lifeblood of Future-Fit organizations. 2020 is the proof: organizations that were already  embracing these values not only survived, but also thrived in the market. A lot has changed since, so much so that for many it feels like ten years went by in the last 12 months. The silver lining though is that we’re now on fertile ground for new ideas, new business models, and new practices. 

Everyone is looking to become the next unicorn with that next big idea that will flip the market on its head. To make this dream a reality, organizations must start embracing a collaborative culture that involves all internal and external stakeholders to build intimate connections, to nurture engagement, and to encourage human-centric and innovation-led conversations. As we enter the age of innovation, the time is ripe to shape the future and own our destiny. The Future-Fit Manifesto proposes a new strategic approach and puts forth prevailing values and principles that empower organizations to explore new possibilities, to seek new frontiers, and to boldly create new futures.

Being a fast follower is no longer enough. You cannot imitate the next unicorn. Being predictive means an organization must lead its future in self-disruption, explore different opportunities constantly, and take a leap of faith to create the next paradigm shift. 

Organizations need to rethink, reinvent, and refocus their systems to thrive in this new hyperdigital world, and the underlying processes have to be reimagined and rebuilt. Quick fixes that do not address the fundamental constraints of being truly digitally native will be only bolt-on solutions that constrain the adaptivity, creativity, and resilience required to be Future-Fit. In the art of the possible, it’s the growth mindset that rules.

More than ever before, organizations can ensure their core values and principles match the future they want to create. Let’s take a deeper look at the Future-Fit values, which build on Agile and establish a growth mindset that is paramount in the age of innovation: 

Collaborative culture over individuals and interactions 

Individuals and interactions offer limited future readiness as everyone follows agile processes. Future-Fit organizations foster a culture of collaboration that is built on trust and rewards creativity, learning, and success; this collaborative ethos is the foundation of sustainable and continuous innovation, as well as adaptability.

Innovative systems over working software

Working software focuses on getting a defined deliverable to a functional state. Future-Fit organizations also value building and improving an innovative system that constantly produces the desired solutions. Creating traceability from strategy to delivery enables organizations to be more adaptive and resilient by proactively responding to disruptions, new regulations, and unavoidable future evolutions.

Discovering opportunities over customer collaboration

Collaborating with customers on a deliverable is important but it provides a limited view of their immediate needs. Future-Fit organizations pursue a customer-obsession strategy by actively uncovering new opportunities based on emerging trends and technologies, and by listening to all feedback to delight stakeholders, build trusted relationships that last a lifetime, and create value.

Creating alternate futures over responding to change

Responding to change is not enough. Being a fast follower does not ensure resilience. Future-Fit organizations predict and anticipate possible scenarios, customer behavior, market needs and other elements not in their control to decide which business models and future states are most desirable. It is crucial to embrace growth strategies by taking advantage of any disruptions.

The nature of work, new technologies, emerging trends, best practices, and regulations are evolving exponentially and in unexpected ways. If the past two decades weren’t enough proof, then the last year alone reminded us that change doesn’t come knocking at our door: it bashes it down, leaving us little or no time at all to pivot accordingly.

Disruption comes in many ways, shapes, and forms, but the result is always the same: a shock to the system. Now, more than ever, organizations need to adopt a proactive mindset that empowers their employees, partners, and community to fearlessly navigate through turbulent times and into uncharted space at warp speed.

How Future-Fit is your organization? Use this free assessment tool to find out your organization’s level of future-fitness in 5 minutes.

Ludwig Melik

CEO at Planbox and author of the Future-Fit Manifesto. I help organizations build a sustainable culture of innovation. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post The Next Paradigm Shift: From Agile to Future-Fit appeared first on Planbox.

A home can catch fire entirely in just 4 minutes. In the first 30 seconds, the fire erupts and begins to spread rapidly. In the next 3 minutes, the temperatures can reach 1100 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point a flashover can occur, and everything in the affected room can burst into flames. The oxygen is virtually sucked out and all the windows shatter. In the final minute, the fire can spread beyond the house and cause damage whatever is in its path. 

This is how fast and furious disruption can feel to an ill-prepared company. Change can creep up at any time and in any form, for example, as a new provider that suddenly introduces an innovative solution or business model that renders yours instantly obsolete. This damage wreaks havoc not only on your organization but also on your organization’s supply chain. Much like the aftermath of a fire, there is not much to go back to. You are at a point of no return, where it becomes difficult, or even impossible, to resume business because too much time has been lost, and it is too late to act.

“In fire you can plan everything out to the minute, and a minute before that everything changes.” – Dan Felix

Corporate life expectancy is at an all-time low — down 300% since the 1980s — and expected to decrease even more in the coming years as analysts believe there may be more innovation in the next decade than in the last century. The opportunity is of historical proportions. However, the challenge is if today’s organizations will develop the necessary discipline and mindset to be tomorrow’s leaders. But why is it that an organization’s survival has become such a critical challenge? 

Gather your clan, make a fire plan

Future-shaping the business while also running it is a lot easier than it sounds. Defining the right innovation Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can determine factors that will help in this crusade. But a large majority of executives cannot track, justify, and account for their innovation investments. Simple and effective measures are the holy grail for innovators who constantly struggle to forecast the value generated from their actions. For many, decisions are often constrained and based on metrics related to specific individual initiatives or limited to a line of business. Some KPIs to consider are concept throughput, concept velocity, Innovation Forecasted Revenue/Cost savings, and other financial metrics.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure 

There are regulations and significant consequences that force organizations to deliver concise financial statements and be accountable to their shareholders by producing total transparency for all material enterprise-wide transactions. These financial records are captured and summarized across the organization. Likewise, it has become evident that customer data can only be reliable and strategic if all related metrics are rationalized and viewed through a global lens that factors in and compiles all the related client data. Yet, Innovation, which is the lifeblood of the company, remains an island on its own. For most companies, there are no comprehensive OKRs for the organization as a whole and the structure to track the KPIs accordingly. The organization can catch fire, as it often does with ever declining corporate survival rates, and it will be too little, too late to act.

Fires that are small, soon will be tall

“The very worst fire plan is no plan. The next worse is two plans.” – Author Unknown

Current innovation measurement and accounting are a lot like the earliest systems for measurement from 3,000-4,000 BC, when the first instances of people using measurement standards emerged; however, there was no universal agreement. Many distinctive units of measurement were being used in different towns and regions. Trade led to the modernization and eventual harmonization of these measures. You cannot fireproof your organization holistically if you do not inspect possible hazards and leave yourself open to a key exposure that can cause a fire to break out and eventually damage the entire business. Just like the Age of Information established a system of record for financials, and the Age of Customer established a system of record for customers, then perhaps the Age of Innovation, alongside emerging standards such as ISO 56000, will usher in the new global standards of measurement for innovation. 

Fire suppression strategy 

When firefighters are called to action, they quickly move to assess the situation and devise the best strategy to extinguish the fire. Organizations do this by defining Innovation OKRs that continuously challenge the company to look for opportunities in the next paradigm shift, and KPIs that constantly monitor their performance to achieve the intended results. 

OKRs are, by design, more aspirational, and a great approach to creating a framework through which the organization lays out its objectives clearly to deliver the right results. Our client Novartis sets a great example of Innovation OKRs. In the latest Innovation Leader Master Class titled “Building, Scaling & “Unbossing” Innovation at Novartis’s Genesis Labs”, they presented two underlying objectives and key results for their innovation program:

Objective #1:

Unleash the power of our people: Provide a sandbox where all employees can imagine, explore, and transform their ideas into reality.

Key Result #1: Implement and launch Planbox’s innovation management platform
Key Result #2: Connect and engage multidisciplinary teams across the globe via Planbox
Key Result #3: Provide the appropriate tools and resources to more than 23,000 scientists, physicians, and business professionals located in R&D sites in more than 80 countries worldwide.
Key Result #4: Start the year with a request for application (RFA)

Objective #2: 

Accelerate scientific innovation: Accelerate the proofing and de-risking of novel and enabling therapeutic concepts into the Novartis pipeline.   

Key Result #1: Review all admissible proposals from the RFA
Key Result #2: Choose the top ideas (~10) to pitch their proof of concept
Key Result #3: Fund the winning projects (~5)
Key Result #4: Commercialize the winning projects

In developing the KPIs to measure your progress against your OKRs, consider the value, activity, and process. Here are some KPI examples:

• Concept Throughput: Number of concepts within each stage of the process (i.e. ideas, completed canvases, tested prototypes, commercialized innovations)
• Concept Velocity: Speed at which selected ideas are moving through the pipeline
• Innovation Forecasted Revenue/Cost savings: Estimated Revenue generated from new innovations
• Other: Actual revenue and cost savings from commercialized innovations

When to measure? 

Unlike financial records, one of the trickiest parts of innovation is determining at what point measurement can help inform and shape future actions and behaviors. The common misconception is the lack of value to measure early and measure often — this Innovation Health Checkup can help your team measure at every stage. Early measures indicate the activity metrics, meaning the right actions will lead to the right results, whereas later in the cycle, the impact metrics are estimated measures that produce an expectation and a forecast intended to help form a basis of the future value for the innovations being considered.

What to measure? 

The next perplexing consideration is to identify and track data points that are meaningful and actionable. The guiding light here is to determine the KPIs that are high value indicators; measure as few as often as possible to maintain momentum in obtaining the necessary metrics to keep doing more of what works and less of what is not as important or not as urgent to the organization.

Build it up and Burn it down

“The innovative leader has to be an arsonist and a firefighter” – Paul Sloane

The dilemma and the reality of lifelong innovative organizations are finding the right balance of continuing to improve the old as you are also looking for entirely new ways to replace it. This is akin to building all the right fire protection measures and running constant drills to stay safe while starting new sparks that can eventually burn the existing models down; you have to be ready to leave behind what was once valuable and start a new adventure. 

That constant search and vigilance for discovering the tipping point is the mastery of inventiveness. The 9-1-1 emergency dispatch is the call you do not want to make. Ensuring the innovation portfolio alignment with corporate objectives is paramount to achieve benefit realization and strategy execution that delivers the expected results. Maintaining this alignment requires a close linkage between cross-functional unit OKRs and KPIs. This means everyone in the organization is vested and rowing in the same direction. Performance assessment against future expected outcomes is a constant challenge to link investments to produce the right returns. 

Sources:

• How a House Fire Spreads https://www.thisoldhouse.com/home-safety/21018283/what-really-happens-in-a-house-fire
• 125 Best Firefighter Slogans, Mottos and Sayings https://brandongaille.com/125-best-firefighter-slogans-mottos-and-sayings/

Ludwig Melik

CEO at Planbox and author of the Future-Fit Manifesto. I help organizations build a sustainable culture of innovation. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post 911, What Are Your Innovation Emergency OKRs? appeared first on Planbox.

Portsmouth, United Kingdom — Planbox, a pioneer in Agile Innovation Management solutions, has been selected by Electrolux Professional, a leading global provider of food service, beverage and laundry solutions, to centralize co-creation activities by building an inclusive innovation system that fosters creativity, trust, and lifelong learning.

With Planbox, Electrolux Professional will bring together diverse mindsets and expertise from various business units to inspire engaging conversations, discover unique insights, and develop new concepts. The multinational appliance company intends to develop authentic connections between employees who will share and improve on ideas, and collaborate on a range of transformational innovations in a transparent, continuous and sustainable manner.

“We have an exceptional and passionate culture that is rich with creativity, but we need a system that helps us bring new ideas to life and reduce our time-to-market. Planbox is going to help amplify creative thinking throughout the company, while also providing the necessary tools to manage our entire innovation pipeline, as we look to leverage its AI-powered platform to drive cross-functional collaboration on a broad portfolio of innovation initiatives that align with our corporate strategy,” said Michele Cadamuro, Director of Design & Innovation at Electrolux Professional.

Identified as the top-ranked leader in data insights, AI/ML delivery, and idea delivery in The Forrester Wave: Innovation Management Platforms, Q1 2020, Planbox was selected by Electrolux for its advanced capabilities across the five fundamental innovation practices defined by Forrester Research, from data-validation to idea selection, incubation, business planning and commercialization. 

“Electrolux will have the unprecedented ability to capitalize on previously untapped opportunities by leveraging the collective wisdom of its global workforce, helping to strengthen its competitive positioning while also advancing its commitment to sustainable development for the benefit of its customers and society at large,” said Nathan Jacob, EMEA General Manager at Planbox.

For all the latest news and updates, follow Planbox on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

About Planbox

Planbox is the pioneering agile innovation management platform software provider for full lifecycle Innovation Portfolio Management, Emerging Tech Empowerment and Ecosystem Enablement. Planbox is also recognized by Forrester as the top-ranking innovation management platform in the marketplace, having received the highest score in strategy and current offering in The Forrester Wave: Innovation Management Platforms, Q1 2020.

As the most robust and scalable platform on the market, we empower our clients to discover, collaborate and capitalize on the best strategically aligned concepts with their ecosystem of employees, customers, suppliers, partners, startups, academia, government and the general public to pursue breakthrough innovations, create a sustainable continuous improvement program, build a framework for corporate venturing and action on consumer insights.

With over 20 years of domain expertise, 400 enterprise deployments, 5M participants and $10B of realized ROI for customers, Planbox’s AI-powered cloud-based agile innovation solutions accelerate business outcomes for some of the world’s most recognized brands, including Whirlpool, Dow, Novartis, ExxonMobil, Cargill, Bobcat, Honeywell and Sun Life.

In 2020, Planbox acquired IdeaConnection, the best-in-class open innovation platform and expert solver network. IdeaConnection by Planbox provides access to millions of diverse and brilliant minds and a global network of 20,000+ multidisciplinary experts and world-class facilitators in more than 180 countries, with an 80% solve rate for open innovation services such as public and confidential challenges, crowdsourced tech scouting and prior art search.

About Electrolux Professional

Electrolux Professional is one of the leading global providers of food service, beverage and laundry solutions, serving a wide range of customers globally, from restaurants and hotels to healthcare, educational and other service facilities. We are the OnE trusted partner making our customers’ work-life easier, more profitable – and truly sustainable every day. With our headquarter in Stockholm, Sweden, we sell appliances in approximately 110 countries.

The post Planbox Selected by Electrolux Professional to Facilitate Creative Collaboration appeared first on Planbox.

Portsmouth, United Kingdom — Planbox, a pioneer in Agile Innovation Management solutions, has been selected to implement a system and culture of innovation across all units of the oldest continuously serving navy in the world, and to manage co-creation projects with internal and external communities including the Portuguese Navy Academy, Industry, and its partners.

“With Planbox, the Portuguese Navy is now equipped to firmly anchor their culture within innovation, and harness the collective knowledge and creativity of more than 10,000 individuals to seize on the best opportunities amid a sea of transformative ideas,” said Nathan Jacob, EMEA General Manager at Planbox. 

The Portuguese Navy will also leverage Planbox’s Microsoft Teams integration to empower users to share and collaborate on their ideas and challenges directly from Microsoft’s leading communication and collaboration tool, as well as to facilitate co-creation activities between ecosystem stakeholders, both inside and outside the organization. 

“As the oldest continuously serving naval force in the world, the Portuguese Navy has a fearless mindset steeped in growth. Navigating through transformations, like navigating treacherous waters, is second nature to them. The Planbox platform will support them in building a resilient culture of collaboration that will allow them to do just that in a sustainable and continuous manner,” said Jacob.

As the top-ranked platform in the Forrester Wave: Innovation Management Platforms, Q1 2020, Planbox’s robust solution — which was also selected to be the crowdsourcing system of the Royal Canadian Navy — was chosen by the Portuguese Navy for its advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities in idea creation and evaluation, which will support the navy’s mission in accelerating concept development across the five distinct innovation activities, these being targeting, ideation, incubation, planning and commercialization.

“To speed up access to emerging technologies and potentially disruptive research, the Portuguese Navy identified Innovation as one of its major priorities. The process of supporting innovation and incorporating new technologies needs to be robust and use the right tools to capture all ideas and seize on the best opportunities. Planbox is the kind of platform that we want with us on a daily basis, providing us with the necessary resources and tools to achieve our goals and further develop our innovation program,” said Pedro Mendes, Head of Innovation Division, Portuguese Naval Staff.

The Portuguese Navy innovation program is spearheaded by the recently created Innovation Division and will use the Navy Operational Experimentation Centre facilities at Troia, where the Robotics Experimentation and Prototyping – Maritime Unmanned Systems exercise – REP(MUS)21 – will take place this year from 8 to 24 September.

For all the latest news and updates, follow Planbox on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

About Planbox

Planbox is the pioneering agile innovation management platform software provider for full lifecycle Innovation Portfolio Management, Emerging Tech Empowerment and Ecosystem Enablement. Planbox is also recognized by Forrester as the top-ranking innovation management platform in the marketplace, having received the highest score in strategy and current offering in the Forrester Wave: Innovation Management Platforms, Q1 2020.

As the most robust and scalable platform on the market, we empower our clients to discover, collaborate and capitalize on the best strategically aligned concepts with their ecosystem of employees, customers, suppliers, partners, startups, academia, government and the general public to pursue breakthrough innovations, create a sustainable continuous improvement program, build a framework for corporate venturing and action on consumer insights.

With over 20 years of domain expertise, 400 enterprise deployments, 5M participants and $10B of realized ROI for customers, Planbox’s AI-powered cloud-based agile innovation solutions accelerate business outcomes for some of the world’s most recognized brands, including Whirlpool, Dow, Novartis, ExxonMobil, Cargill, Bobcat, Honeywell and Sun Life.

In 2020, Planbox acquired IdeaConnection, the best-in-class open innovation platform and expert solver network. IdeaConnection by Planbox provides access to millions of diverse and brilliant minds and a global network of 20,000+ multidisciplinary experts and world-class facilitators in more than 180 countries, with an 80% solve rate for open innovation services such as public and confidential challenges, crowdsourced tech scouting and prior art search.

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Wilmington, Delaware — Planbox, a pioneer in agile innovation management solutions, reaches new major milestones for a fifth consecutive year, as the company makes significant improvements to its offerings with the latest acquisition of IdeaConnection, and breaks new ground with the launch of innovation integrations and the first-ever Innovation Center of Excellence compliant with the ISO 56000 Standard for Innovation Management Systems, accelerating customers’ strategic approaches to innovation for 2021. 

“Innovation is at the core of Bobcat’s legacy. We believe in involving everyone in innovation.  Planbox gives us the opportunity to do this easily. Not only do they provide a top-ranked platform, but they have provided the support needed to scale our program effortlessly. As we move into 2021, we’re excited about our partnership with Planbox and the opportunities that will be created through crowdsourcing,” said Jennifer Saari, Acceleration Specialist at Doosan Bobcat.

Major Financial and Operational Highlights:

• Recognized by Forrester as the top-ranking innovation management platform software provider, receiving the highest score in strategy and current offering in The Forrester Wave: Innovation Management Platforms, Q1, 2020.
• Completed the acquisition of IdeaConnection, the best-in-class open innovation expert solver network with an industry best 80% solve rate.
• Achieved ISO 27001, 27017 and 27018 Information Security Certification, the most stringent information management and cloud security requirements conforming with globally recognized standards.
• Completed SOC II Type 2 Examination for a second consecutive year, ensuring the continued security, availability and confidentiality of customer data.
• Awarded Deloitte Technology Fast 50, ranking among the fastest-growing technology companies nationwide.
• Awarded Deloitte North America Technology 500, ranking among the fastest-growing technology companies in North America.
• Named a Top Growing Company by the Globe and Mail, ranking among the fastest-growing businesses nationwide.
• Selected by Doosan Bobcat to further drive technical development, advance customer satisfaction programs, optimize business operations and explore new markets.
• Selected by Med-IQ to help drive the development of groundbreaking products and services in healthcare, transform medical education and improve patient outcomes.
• Selected by Kindred Credit Union to facilitate co-creation activities and concept development, discover business efficiencies and drive the best ideas toward implementation more quickly and effectively.
• Selected by Laval Innov to create innovation communities where SMEs collaborate on complex regional challenges and identify innovative projects.
• Launched a partnership with Digit AI in the Middle East and Africa to provide private and public sector organizations with the skills and competencies they need to innovate and digitize their offerings.

“Planbox also provides some of the more advanced AI/ML capabilities we observed for idea creation and brings data-validation to idea selection, incubation, and commercialization. The company has dramatically expanded its platform’s value and delivery.”

Forrester Wave: Innovation Management Platforms, Q1 2020

Major Product Highlights:

• Focus Areas: Focus areas are like permanent challenges that are always open for collaboration, ideation and concept development. Focus areas serve as the building blocks of your strategy. They expand on your Vision Statement and create some structure around how to actually get your organization to achieve its goals. Your innovation team can plan and launch challenges and other activities related to a specific area.
• Private Ideas: select a specific audience to view, collaborate on, and contribute to a private idea without alerting the rest of the organization of its existence.
• Head to Head Evaluation: as one of the evaluation methods available in Planbox, Head to Head evaluation, developed by an MIT Scientist, is a mathematically and scientifically sound method to evaluate a large number of ideas, opportunities and insights. This technology was acquired from Imaginatik and incorporated into Planbox Agile Innovation Suite.
• Innovation integrations: connect users’ favorite apps to their innovation workspaces in Planbox, allowing them to automate routine tasks, streamline workflows and discover actionable insights.
• Innovation Center of Excellence Platform: a centralized self-service innovation management system to plan, manage, track and report on the entire innovation process and pipeline. To be released in January 2021.
• Real-time Collaborative Canvas: create, deliver and capture the value of innovation concepts by bringing the key elements of an idea or concept onto a single page. To be released in January 2021.

Major Customer Success Highlights:

In one of the most tumultuous years in recent history. Planbox launched an ongoing series of Business Threat Challenge Starters to support the company’s clients in their ideation initiatives in areas of advanced research, rapid prototyping and commercialization by virtually engaging their innovation ecosystems amid the global health pandemic. This initiative resulted in highly innovative ideas such as a global pharmaceutical company that launched virtual Volunteering Challenge to remotely engage employees, a medical device company fourn creative solutions to repurpose existing material and work with partner to bring new solutions to market starting with a focus on masks, a leading chemical company move to a self-service model to be more agile in this crisis, a multinational energy company COVID-19 continuity planning challenges.

• Selected by Barton Malow to gamify co-creation and problem-solving activities.
• Selected by New Zealand Hemp Industries Association to tap into the collective creativity of its ecosystem and rapidly identify 31-game changing innovations.
• Launched a Covid-19 Business Threat Challenge Starters Kit to support collaborative problem-solving and informed decision-making at the height of the pandemic. Hollister Incorporated, a multinational healthcare company, leveraged the Challenge Starters Kit to identify breakthrough opportunities and discover new business models that contributed to the global fight against Covid-19.
• Helped Syngenta identify practical long-term data-driven solutions in agriculture through the annual Syngenta Crop Challenge in Analytics — a global open innovation competition that leverages IdeaConnection’s vast ecosystem of mathematicians, modelling experts and data scientists.

“We recognize the need to look at other disciplines and industries to raise awareness of the challenges and exciting opportunities within agriculture,” said Gregory Doonan, Head of Advanced Analytics at Syngenta. “IdeaConnection by Planbox has a well-established and vast network of solvers we can reach out to. Each year we do this, I feel it’s widening the network and our contacts.”

Other Key Highlights and Developments:

• Conducted a global study and published a research report on the State of Corporate Innovation.
• Awarded G-Cloud 12 Framework for a second consecutive year, certifying Planbox as a trusted supplier of cloud-based software and services via the UK Government’s Digital Marketplace.
• Received CSA STAR Certification, the industry’s most powerful program for security assurance in the cloud.
• Achieved Cyber Essentials Certification, a UK Government assurance scheme certifying that Planbox’s policies, procedures and security measures adhere to government-endorsed standards.

“The Planbox Platform and overall Partnership have been key enablers to Innovation Processes and meaningful Business Outcomes,” said Rich Rennie, Honeywell Safety and Productivity Solutions.

For all the latest news and updates, follow Planbox on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

About Planbox

Planbox is the pioneering agile innovation management platform software provider for full lifecycle Innovation Portfolio Management, Emerging Tech Empowerment and Ecosystem Enablement. Planbox is recognized by Forrester as the top-ranking innovation management platform in the marketplace, having received the highest score in strategy and current offering in the The Forrester Wave: Innovation Management Platforms, Q1, 2020.

As the most robust and scalable platform on the market, we empower our clients to discover, collaborate and capitalize on the best strategically aligned concepts with their ecosystem of employees, customers, suppliers, partners, startups, academia, government and the general public to pursue breakthrough innovations, create a sustainable continuous improvement program, build a framework for corporate venturing and action on consumer insights.

With over 20 years of domain expertise, 400 enterprise deployments, 5M participants and $10B of realized ROI for customers, Planbox’s AI-powered cloud-based agile innovation solutions accelerate business outcomes for some of the world’s most recognized brands, including Whirlpool, Dow, Novartis, ExxonMobil, Cargill, Bobcat, Honeywell and Sun Life.

In 2020, Planbox acquired IdeaConnection, the best-in-class open innovation platform and expert solver network. IdeaConnection by Planbox provides access to millions of diverse and brilliant minds and a global network of 20,000+ multidisciplinary experts and world-class facilitators in more than 180 countries, with an 80% solve rate for open innovation services such as public and confidential challenges, crowdsourced tech scouting and prior art search.

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Wilmington, Delaware — Planbox, a pioneer in Agile Innovation Management solutions, was selected as a representative vendor in Gartner Market Guide for Innovation Management Tools. 

According to Gartner, « application leaders should use this Market Guide to understand this market and make effective technology choices for their innovation acceleration programs. » The report finds, “the transformation to digital business, competitive pressures and new demands to scale remote work rapidly is increasing IT leaders’ interest in software that supports innovation acceleration initiatives.”

In addition to the analysis of vendor-supplied data, the guide looks at key characteristics and trends in the innovation management tools market, including market definition, description and direction. Gartner’s Social Media Analytics Service also carried out a social listening analysis. According to Gartner, conversations on social media highlighted how the focus shifted from idea generation in 2018 to agile innovation management platforms. “This reflected a need for broader support for all aspects of an innovation program beyond ideation, as well as the central roles of innovation in Digital Transformation initiatives.”

Agile Innovation has spread across a range of industries, departments and functions, reaching into the C-suite and the project management office to lead digital transformation across the enterprise and drive continuous innovation — a modern business imperative for customer-obsessed firms to stay ahead, as noted in the Forrester Wave: Innovation Management Platforms, Q1 2020, in which Planbox is recognized as the top-ranking Agile Innovation platform with the highest score in strategy and current offering. 

Additionally, according to Gartner, “The most active area of development and differentiation between products is around custom workflows, integration, advanced analytics and the development of support for specific use cases.” Planbox recently launched an array of integrations including Microsoft Office 365, Google G Suite, Teams and SharePoint, among others, to facilitate the flow of information between applications and provide the opportunity for creative collaboration regardless of tool or location —  empowering users involved in digital transformation initiatives.

Gartner “Market Guide for Innovation Management Tools” by Nikos Drakos and Marty Resnick, 30 November 2020.

Gartner Disclaimer:

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

For all the latest news and updates, follow Planbox on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

About Planbox

Planbox is the pioneering agile innovation management platform software provider for full lifecycle Innovation Portfolio Management, Emerging Tech Empowerment and Ecosystem Enablement. Planbox is recognized by Forrester as the top-ranking innovation management platform in the marketplace, having received the highest score in strategy and current offering in the Forrester Wave: Innovation Management Platforms, Q1, 2020. As the most robust and scalable platform on the market, we empower our clients to discover, collaborate and capitalize on the best strategically aligned concepts with their ecosystem of employees, customers, suppliers, partners, startups, academia, government and the general public to pursue breakthrough innovations, create a sustainable continuous improvement program, build a framework for corporate venturing and action on consumer insights. With over 20 years of domain expertise, 400 enterprise deployments, 5M participants and $10B of realized ROI for customers, Planbox’s AI-powered cloud-based agile innovation solutions accelerate business outcomes for some of the world’s most recognized brands, including Whirlpool, Dow, Novartis, ExxonMobil, Cargill, Bobcat, Honeywell and Sun Life.

In 2020, Planbox acquired IdeaConnection, the best-in-class open innovation platform and expert solver network. IdeaConnection by Planbox provides access to millions of diverse and brilliant minds and a global network of 20,000+ multidisciplinary experts and world-class facilitators in more than 180 countries, with an 80% solve rate for open innovation services such as public and confidential challenges, crowdsourced tech scouting and prior art search.

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Wilmington, Delaware — Planbox, a pioneer in agile innovation management solutions, launched the Real-time Collaborative Canvas (RCC), a strategic management tool used to quickly define, collaborate on and develop a business idea or concept.

As an alternative approach to the standard business planning model, Real-time Collaborative Canvas lays a practical path for game-changing innovations, offering a clear and concise framework through which innovators can communicate the inherent value of disruptive ideas in order to pursue transformative projects and initiatives.

Using a templated approach, RCC is an intuitive way to visually build the business case for — or express the value proposition of — a concept in an easy-to-read single-page document, working through the fundamental elements of a project proposal, potential investment, or product pitch, and streamlining the business case development process by collaborating on the assumptions, costs, risks and returns before investing in an idea or a concept.

Planbox offers several pre-configured canvas templates, with a variety of export options that enable further discussion, planning and analysis with stakeholders and subject matter experts. The canvas templates are:

• Business Model Canvas (BMC): Describes, visualizes and assesses business model changes; BMC defines what value is created and delivered.
• Lean Canvas: An adaption of BMC, Lean deconstructs an idea into key assumptions and focuses on problems, solutions key metrics and competitive advantages.
• Pitch Canvas: Helps prepare a business idea pitch to potential investors; Pitch gathers and refines ideas to build a compelling story.
• Flourishing Canvas: Provides a common language that facilitates collaboration between the organization and its stakeholders; Flourishing enables teams to align on key strategic decisions regarding the economic, social and environmental aspects of the business model.
• SWOT Analysis Canvas: Describes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a concept; SWOT determines whether a concept fits the organization’s risk tolerance and is aligned with strategic objectives.
• Business Innovation Canvas (BIC): Provides a focused and concise picture of the innovation project being proposed. With BIC, you specify who the customers will be for the innovation, their pain points, the desired outcome of the innovation, which existing products address similar pain points or customers and how they differ, the value proposition for the innovation, cost and revenue estimates, and other information.
• 2 column, 3 column, 4 column: The 2/3/4 column canvases can be used to create a pitch or a collaborative canvas for any information your team intends to convey without using one of the more specific canvas types.
• Free Style: The free style canvas has no rows, columns or sections. This canvas is ideal for brainstorming and freestyle collaboration sessions where the objective is to gather information and encourage collaboration without an initial classification.

“Real-time Collaborative Canvas is a visual online tool that greatly facilitates building a business case for new ideas and concepts, empowering your team to pitch them to decision makers with more confidence,” said Aleksandra Gutsman, Innovation Consultant at Planbox. RCC ultimately helps your organization develop and fund strategic concepts with the highest potential to deliver unique business value.” 

For all the latest news and updates, follow Planbox on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

About Planbox

Planbox is the pioneering agile innovation management platform software provider for full lifecycle Innovation Portfolio Management, Emerging Tech Empowerment and Ecosystem Enablement. Planbox is recognized by Forrester as the top-ranking innovation management platform in the marketplace, having received the highest score in strategy and current offering in the Forrester Wave: Innovation Management Platforms, Q1, 2020. As the most robust and scalable platform on the market, we empower our clients to discover, collaborate and capitalize on the best strategically aligned concepts with their ecosystem of employees, customers, suppliers, partners, startups, academia, government and the general public to pursue breakthrough innovations, create a sustainable continuous improvement program, build a framework for corporate venturing and action on consumer insights. With over 20 years of domain expertise, 400 enterprise deployments, 5M participants and $10B of realized ROI for customers, Planbox’s AI-powered cloud-based agile innovation solutions accelerate business outcomes for some of the world’s most recognized brands, including Whirlpool, Dow, Novartis, ExxonMobil, Cargill, Bobcat, Honeywell and Sun Life.

In 2020, Planbox acquired IdeaConnection, the best-in-class open innovation platform and expert solver network. IdeaConnection by Planbox provides access to millions of diverse and brilliant minds and a global network of 20,000+ multidisciplinary experts and world-class facilitators in more than 180 countries, with an 80% solve rate for open innovation services such as public and confidential challenges, crowdsourced tech scouting and prior art search.

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