It is never possible to know where a good idea will come from. Sometimes it can be calm. Other times, it’s an hour-long brainstorming session. Ideas may come from the top of an organization, or perhaps from a new hire with a fresh perspective. Organizations need new ideas to be successful and thrive. Knowing this, good leaders always try to foster a culture of innovation and idea generation among the workforce. Idea Management Software Though idea management platforms come in many different shapes and forms, they all serve the same basic purpose: they serve as a tool for organizations to collaborate among themselves, collect, evaluate, and implement innovative ideas generated by the workforce. Any organization in all market sectors can benefit from these platforms, as innovation and improvement is important to everyone. Advantages of Using Idea Management Software As companies grow and scale, any organization needs the potential to leverage a modern 21st century solution for idea management. You might think of idea management software as a modern take on the old suggestion box, but that would be like comparing the Titanic ship to a rowboat. The idea management platforms available on the market today can do much more than analog methods, with a focus on delivering huge benefits for any business. Ways to Streamline Idea (Suggestion) Management Software Market Dynamics Idea management software helps your organization anticipate and identify potential innovations and assess whether they are just temporary trends or real transformations. Good idea management helps you keep your finger on the pulse of important market changes. Staff Participation Employees in almost every organization have been shown to work best when they feel empowered and have a say. Leadership fosters a culture of collaboration where members know that their thoughts and ideas are taken into account by higher echelons; staff engagement and job satisfaction increase. When your team is happy and engaged, attrition rates (and training, hiring and hiring costs) decrease while productivity increases at the same rate. Customer Experience There is another benefit provided by a concerned employee; excellent customer service. Innovation and idea management creates an improvement chain that helps everyone from the manager to the customer. Employees are happy to come to work when they feel they have a say in their organization. When employees are happy at work, as the atmosphere and culture evolve, so do customers. Additionally, employees serving customers often have ideas on how customer service can be improved. This gives you an immediate way to give employees ideas management tools and improve your customer experience. Strategy Alignment One of the biggest barriers to innovation and development within an organization is the failure of an organization’s members to understand the strategic vision of its leaders. Idea management software is not only a one-way communication tool for employees to submit ideas, but also another way for leadership to communicate with the workforce. When leaders evaluate ideas and decide which ones to go after, they drive the organization’s future and tell the workforce where the boss wants the company to go. Idea management systems also allow leaders to share organizational challenges and solicit possible solutions from their workforces. Income Generation and Efficiency Most businesses ask these questions: How is the company increasing its revenue? Is the organization as efficient as possible? Where does the business spend excess funds? such questions can be asked. Leaders and managers cannot be everywhere all the time, with visibility into all aspects of the organization’s processes to see where improvements need to be made. Idea management software can increase a leader’s insight into how business works through the eyes of team members. This increased visibility empowers leaders to think of ways to increase productivity (and therefore revenue) in ways they may not have thought of before. Better Collaboration and an Embedded Innovation Process Communication within any organization is a challenge and can only become more difficult as a business grows. Tools that form the basis of communication in the 21st century; e-mail, instant messaging, shareable text documents and others have increased the means of communication. But organizations still lack appropriate ways to collaborate. There’s a difference between forwarding long email chains and real brainstorming. To summarize, the idea management software solves the problems we mentioned in the above paragraphs, both in terms of communication and by facilitating cooperation. This solution also allows teams to think together and truly innovate, in contrast to the back-and-forth nature of traditional communication platforms.
