Innovation specialist shoots for midmarket

Innovation management specialist Brightidea launched a hosted version of its software on Wednesday with hopes that midmarket companies are ready to begin adopting the tools.

The realm of innovation management applications, software used by companies to collect and track new ideas submitted by their employees, has belonged primarily to larger customers in the past. Brightidea is betting that the hosted software model will help push such technologies into businesses previously unwilling or unable to afford such products.

"We know that there is a dramatic demand for innovation among customers, and traditionally only the largest companies could afford software to help with the innovation process," said Matthew Greeley, chief executive of Brightidea. "Midmarket companies may have even more pressure to capture new ideas and improve products than their larger rivals, so we think there's a big opportunity here."

For roughly US$30,000 per year, companies can purchase a subscription to Brightidea's midmarket offering, which promises to deliver a centralized system where workers' suggestions can be organized, tracked and promoted by managers or marketing teams. The software also lets companies launch targeted campaigns aimed at finding new ideas to solve specific problems, or to offer rewards to employees who generate new designs that find their way into production.

Brightidea, which is in the process of changing its name from General Ideas Software, has already won over a number of well-known customers with its applications designed for larger firms, with the names of manufacturing giants such as Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Honeywell and Philips Electronics on the company's list of users. Some industry watchers believe Brightidea could touch off a wave of activity around innovation management among smaller companies looking to find ways to become more competitive.

According to Navi Radjou, analyst at Forrester Research, small and medium size--or SMB--companies could have a sizeable appetite for innovation management, because he believes that economies of scale have kept such companies from looking at the tools in the past.

"Midmarket companies will definitely benefit from these technologies, because SMBs are typically more innovative than larger corporations," said Radjou. "I also envision these tools being acquired by consultants who are building innovation management practices."

The analyst said companies such as Brightidea and its rivals, specifically Imaginatik, should be able to attract companies previously unable to utilize idea management technologies offered by enterprise applications makers including SAP, either because they proved too complex or too expensive to install.

One company already benefiting from Brightidea's applications is Robert Bosch Tool, the maker of product brands ranging from handheld Dremel devices to Gilmour sprinkler heads. The company has used the hosted version of Brightidea's software for almost one year as it has made preparations to install the on-site version, and Peter Neumann, Innovation Manager at the company, said the results have impressed thus far.

Despite the fact that Bosch already had enterprise applications in house that offered some form of technology aimed at helping with the creative management process, including SAP software, Neumann said his task became significantly less daunting the day Bosch began trying out Brightidea's software.

"Some groups had Excel spreadsheets, some had Access databases, essentially people had their own way of doing things when it came to saving ideas as they were submitted," said Neumann. "It's a nice way of organizing everything into one package, it took a while to convince management to buy in, but they see the value now: It's a front end process for getting the best ideas tracked."