Technology Scouting Software for Open Innovation
Business is evolving faster than ever. Consumer demands have never been higher, and large organizations who don’t innovate will eventually die. Large organizations like these can no longer exclusively rely on the internal R&D team or employee base to produce the product innovation and insights that will keep them in the game.
Enterprises are increasingly turning to open innovation for their product development strategy. Alan G. Lafley, CEO of Proctor & Gamble believes “half the company’s ideas must come from the outside.”
Technology Scouting Allows Organizations to Find Innovators and Solvers
To do this, you need to find and engage innovators outside of your organization. This is called “technology scouting,” and it’s a critical aspect of open innovation.
Scouting allows organizations to identify intellectual property and key influencers and engage them to become part of their innovation.
Whether you’re scouting “internally” among 1,000s of employees in your organization or need to reach outside of your organization, the critical first step in open innovation is finding the “solvers.”
These “solvers” can come from any area in the world and any industry such as:
- Researchers
- Start Ups
- Experts
- Supply Chain
- Employees
- Universities
- Customers
- Inventors
Cyber Scouting vs Network Driven Scouting
eZassi’s cyber scouting software is a technology driven solution which is very different from a “network driven” cyber scouting service. We go beyond the companies like NineSigma, who use a closed, curated network. With eZassi’s idea management software, you are not limited to any network. We dynamically create solver networks based on the key criteria associate with your specific challenge.
eZassi’s deconstruction engine and bot crawler system search the web to find unique solvers that match your innovation needs.
Next, the “automated outreach” feature allows you to automatically invite people that meet your criteria to your innovation portal.
Competitors have their own “networks”, however, they are limiting. Using our technology scouting software, you can efficiently manage your entire open innovation process from beginning to end.
Static Networks vs Dynamic Networks
Currently, most innovation management software platforms use static networks or tech scouts (recruiters) for technology scouting.
Static or “closed” networks rely on existing databases, contacts, and traditional methods of outreach. They are similar to a giant rolodex that is maintained over time and can be called upon when needed; however, this audience is not dynamic and curated based on your specific innovation challenge keywords and requirements.
Some companies overcome the limitations of a closed network by hiring “tech scouts” who scour the internet looking for patents, research, and papers that match up to a specific innovation challenge. Since one person or a team of individuals cannot search every patent submitted or stay abreast of new research articles, social commentary, and content that’s published daily, this solution is often found lacking.
eZassi’s Dynamic Cyberscouting Finds Solvers Based On Your Unique Innovation Challenges
eZassi’s cyber scouting solution creates an open, dynamic network. It starts by entering the keywords specific to your idea challenge, such as microencapsulation, volatile solvents, chemical engineer, and more.
Once your keyword list is refined, our automated technology scours the internet daily to uncover conversations on social media, website articles, blogs and patents as they are published, patents that are filed, presentations that are uploaded and more.
We create a dynamic network, that is built on the keywords that are unique to your challenge. This dynamic network is automated and updated daily.
Where “closed” networks offer one central rolodex to pull from which may or may not have solvers that meet your needs, and technology scouts (recruiters) are limited by their efforts, our dynamic network does the work for you identifying solvers and innovators that match your specific innovation challenge’s needs.
Engage the Solvers by Launching Innovation Challenges & Idea Contests
Once you’ve found qualified solvers through technology scouting, you invite them to participate using innovation challenges and idea contests. eZassi’s innovation management software comes with your own innovation challenge website so you can gather, manage, and sustain your innovation challenges from one central location.
Use our software to run internal and external innovation challenges and collect both structured and unstructured responses.
Whether you want to anonymously offer a challenge to solve a particular problem or have a branded innovation portal, engaging participants through an innovation challenge is critical step in the process.
View our innovation challenges here:
One Platform to Manage Your Open Innovation From Finding Solvers to Developing Winning Products
Without one platform to manage open innovation, companies end up stitching together multiple technology solutions that result in inefficiency and great ideas that never transform into winning products. eZassi’s software platform allows your organization to scout, launch, and manage innovation challenges internally and externally from one central location.
For example, Mindjet, the creators of MindManager do mind mapping and idea generation very well but don’t offer a feature to “find” the innovators that need to participate.
NineSigma has a brilliant network for launching and managing innovation challenges, but it stops there. You can’t take your idea from start to finish in their software.
These “silos” of data stored across multiple platforms impede the innovation process by creating pockets of data and limited visibility into the entire idea pipeline.
From finding the innovators through technology scouting to filtering and managing the ideas through the product development cycle, eZassi offers one software platform to manage all of your open innovation.
Schedule a demo today to walk through our open innovation software.