SAP and Beiersdorf co-innovated to develop SAP Innovation Management, a solution that helps companies systematically foster ideas and develop innovations with unprecedented efficiency.
Every company, whatever its size, is brimming over with innovation potential, which is why today’s enterprises are on the look-out for creative methods to foster idea management. However, too often a lack of basic processes and structures means that some of a company’s innovative power and employee potential is simply going to waste. To ensure successful idea management, companies need a platform that motivates potential users.
SAP Innovation Management is the result of a cooperation project between SAP and Beiersdorf, along with other customers. It specifically addresses those challenges that companies struggle with most in their innovation processes.
“The product is tailored to what customers need and was developed in close collaboration with them,” says Jochen Mayerle, Chief Solution Expert at SAP. The solution unites all of the key processes in idea management ― from gathering ideas, setting up idea campaigns, and inviting feedback from peers to locating subject-matter experts and handing ideas over to product development.
“SAP listened”
Companies that use multiple software solutions for ideation are in real danger of letting good ideas slip through the cracks. That’s why Beiersdorf set its sights on creating a single solution that would combine plenty of versatile functions with the ability to support exchange and discussion across teams and geographies.
Another important factor for Beiersdorf was the user experience. After all, if entering ideas in the tool is enjoyable, then employees are more likely to do it.
“An ideation solution has to have a great ‘look and feel’ so that employees are motivated both to submit their own ideas and to evaluate and share opinions about the ideas entered by their peers. This last aspect is key, because it is the act of exchanging opinions that really gets the innovation process moving,” explains Alexander Ramin, Global Process & Application Solutions, Department Lead Innovation, Marketing and Sales at Beiersdorf Shared Services. The software must be simple and easy to use.
“We wanted to benefit from the co-innovation project by channeling our own ideas and wishes into it. The user experience in SAP Innovation Management is excellent. So I can categorically say that SAP listened,” says Ramin.
