innosabi, a Questel brand, is one of the world‘s leading providers of software solutions for collaborative innovation and idea management. Large international corporations rely on innosabi‘s software and methodological knowledge to transform their innovation processes by enabling open collaboration with customers, employees, suppliers, and other relevant stakeholders. innosabi empowers organizations to leverage their entire ecosystem for innovation.
In addition to new forms of digital, large-scale collaboration, innosabi is continuously developing innovative analytics and evaluation mechanics to make more information and additional data sources usable in corporate innovation. innosabi‘s customers today include Pepsico, Deutsche Telekom, Lufthansa Group and Astra Zeneca. As of January 2021, innosabi is part of the Questel group.
The innosabi Software Suite:
The innosabi Software Suite offers all the necessary tools to cover innovation end-to-end: It lets you spot relevant market developments or exciting new startups in your field. It allows you to engage your employees in innovation challenges and run co-creation projects with customers to get their feedback. It connects your network of trusted partners and suppliers to work collaboratively on new solutions. And it provides a place for all your technological knowledge and expertise to be shared and found whenever needed.
innosabi is the end-to-end innovation suite to elevate the way you innovate.
innosabi Insight: Turn scouting and your understanding of the market into a competitive advantage with advanced data aggregation and analytics – specifically built for innovation. Access and search over 500 data sources with 125 million patents, research papers, clinical trials, and more.
Features: Insight Dashboard, Technology Scouting, Competitive Intelligence
innosabi Idea: Bring your innovation management to the next level by engaging your employees in collaboration, idea challenges, trend scouting, and more. Use their knowledge and ideas to develop new products and find solutions. innosabi Idea will be your centralized platform for participation in all your innovation efforts and programs.
Features: Innovation Challenges, Innovation Funding, Solution Scouting, Idea Management, Innovation Award, Trend Radar.
innosabi Community: Empower your product development with this specialized tool for co-creation, user feedback, prototype testing, and customer engagement. Make the development of new products, services, and business models truly customer-centric by gathering feedback and ideas of your customers.
Features: Crowd Innovation, Prototype Testing, B2C Supercharger
innosabi Partner: Expand your network of innovators and collaborate with external experts or suppliers in dedicated challenges and open innovation projects.
Features: Supplier Innovation, Open Call, Startup Radar
innosabi Startup: Scout emerging startups, identify the most promising ones, and make them part of your innovation ecosystem. Streamline your startup program in a collaborative startup relationship management tool.
Features: Startup Search, Deal-Flow Management, Challenge Link, Dashboard & Reports
innosabi Project: Bring your innovation management to the next level by engaging your employees in innovation projects in a central collaborative knowledge sharing space. Track progress, growth, and results with an intuitive dashboard. Connect the right people at the right time to the right project.
CEO Q&A: Jan Fischer
What innovation activities does your solution seek to support?
Our solution is designed to support a comprehensive range of innovation activities, from grassroots initiatives to top-down strategic programs. Whether working within the company or engaging with external stakeholders, we provide tools tailored for every aspect of innovation. Our software’s adaptability allows it to integrate seamlessly with existing processes, enhancing and streamlining them to boost overall efficiency.
What are the outcomes you seek to help your customers achieve?
We aim to make innovation effortless and efficient for our customers. Many organizations struggle with slow, bureaucratic processes that hinder their innovation potential. Our tools empower companies to transform their operations, making them more agile, impactful, and flexible in their innovation efforts.
Are there one or two case studies you like to talk about, in terms of how customers use it?
Absolutely, here are two notable case studies:
Greenhouse Challenge: The Greenhouse Challenge, an initiative with its roots in Australia, is a climate action platform that fosters collaboration among multiple stakeholders to find and scale climate tech solutions. Since its launch in 2023, it has hosted five challenges, including the “Near Zero Steel 2030” initiative in partnership with the World Economic Forum. This initiative supports the commercialization of innovative technologies in the steel sector through offtake agreements, connection to breakthrough technologies, funding support, and access to renewable energy. The platform’s flexibility allows it to cater to diverse perspectives within the ecosystem, significantly enhancing its impact.
Koppers Inc.: Koppers Inc. switched to our platform, innosabi Idea, due to its higher flexibility and customizability for administrators. Since officially launching at the end of December 2023, they have already launched two challenges in 2024, with several accepted and implemented ideas. Our powerful workflow engine automates their ideation management process, even handling complex idea score calculations. Additionally, we provided a unique solution to include their frontline workers in the ideation process, even those without email addresses, ensuring comprehensive participation across the organization. The tremendous support and better infrastructure we offer have significantly improved their innovation management capabilities.
How are you leveraging / will you leverage generative AI in your solution? How do you see that as being important going forward?
We’ve been incorporating AI into our tools for several years, using it to analyze large volumes of data and provide a better overview for users. Generative AI is the continuation of this trend and will make it easier for users to share ideas, for innovation managers to setup challenges and for decision makers to evaluate potential. Our job is to make this as seamless as possible for all stakeholders like we did in patent drafting.
How do you see corporate innovation changing in 2024 and beyond? What are some of the new expectations and new pressures?
Innovation has become a standard practice rather than a novel concept. Over the past decade, we’ve moved from discovering new methods and best practices to establishing them. The current challenge is scaling these efforts effectively. Companies now need tools that not only offer comprehensive features but also grow and adapt with their evolving needs. Flexibility and customization are key, as organizations seek to professionalize and scale their innovation processes to maintain relevance and drive success in an ever-changing market.
