Brightidea

I used Bright Idea to source & implement ideas from an organization of 1,200+ on an ongoing basis.

Comments: This software made it easy to collect, sort, organize, analyze, and communicate about ideas submitted by a 1200+ person organization spanning sites across the east coast (as well as an array of home workers across the country).

Pros:

The software is intuitive and mirrors social media that most people are familiar with. It is easy to customize on the whole, and meets the objectives for our business goals.

Cons:

I wish there were more options to support an ongoing program like the one we have. At Unum, we aren't looking for ideas in small spurts of time, but rather using the site as the foundation of an ongoing engagement and continuous improvement program spanning office locations and multiple departments/skills. Although we are using the tool in a way that it isn't necessarily intended, we have seen tremendous success. It'd be great to see BrightIdea work to tailor a version of the platform to a business goal like ours.

Robust and highly capable idea management platform

Comments: The service at Brightidea stands out. Throughout the sales process and more importantly, since the sales process, Brightidea have been attentive while giving us the space to explore and use the platform. There a good transparent processes for raising requests for future enhancements. In the first few months we have set up a range of challenge in the platform with very few issues - overall, it is early days, but has been a good start.

Pros:

The platform is not that big on frills, but it feels highly dependable. The navigation is intuitive and we feel no need to issue user guides.

Cons:

Currently, the reporting is robust and fairly extensive, but the ability to create custom reports would be a great addition to the platform.

Good experience but the software has some limits that can be improved

Pros:

Flexibility in terms of customized pipeline, different evaluations tools, open to external and business model canvas and business impact that allow digitalizing some activities. Customization in terms of look & feel.

Cons:

No possibility to assign an idea to a specific evaluator (some clients ask this functionality in particular when they start to use the platform). The activation of the workspace is centralized and permitted only to the admin (a high effort to innovation team). The absence of a project management tool (the functionality in the workspace is really poor). The low flexibility of the dashboard (in particular the dashboard shows the ideas in specific step and not in the stage- the step in the pipeline is typically used to make easier the activities and is not relevant in terms of process). The submission form is not effective. The development tool is assigned mainly by the submitter in a dynamic way (and specific resources defined) but if the ideas are published by a team the development tool doesn't permit to fill in the tool by all members. The absence of links to ideas and possibility to merge them if really similar or complementary. The chip can be cool but the employees are not incentivized to use them (if the employees make a good investment they gain the chips- if the employees do not invest chips have the same amount of chips)

BrightIdea Review

Comments: We started an internal crowdsourcing approach using BrightIdea and this has resonated very well with our business members. They are pleased that their ideas are able to be heard and the process is transparent.

Pros:

The look & feel of the BrightIdea platform is very easy and engaging for users.

Cons:

Functionality is limited in areas such as socialization and financials. Though the BrightIdea team is very open to hearing product enhancements and is frequently updating the software.

Brightidea has been the key to organising our innovation initiatives

Comments: It has been a great way to get everyone involved in idea sharing. We have tried this without using Brightidea but it became too complicated to manage. This software makes managing the workflow super easy!

Pros:

Very easy to adapt the software to the needs of the initiative, as well to the colors and theme of our company

Cons:

I have not found anything negative, and I continue to try to find things that could be improved, but to date have not found any!