Vizibl held its annual summit this week, Collaborate 2021. The key announcement was the launch of a new Innovation Hub. The Innovation hub is part of the Vizibl supplier management platform. It allows suppliers to complete Opportunity Capture Forms which is the modern equivalent of an ideas box. Its main difference is that once complete, rather than shoved in a box and forgotten, it enables the ideas to be tracked and turned into initiatives and projects that can deliver outcomes. It ties ideas to key business goals or specific problems and tracks them as they progress through an innovation process.
Innovation can work, but the first stage of ideation needs control. Without control, investment is made into ideas that never bear fruit. Vizibl is providing a platform that will enable organisations to leverage their supply chain for new ideas and ensure that the best ideas are moved forward quickly.
The Innovation Hub can initiate ideas to drive cost savings, productivity, business growth and support a sustainability agenda. With the Vizibl platform able to support suppliers from different communities, the hub can also enhance supplier diversity. With different lines of business able to access the platform, the idea can cover specific areas such as finance, product development, compliance, and procurement and support cross-functional ideas. Procurement, which typically manages the Vizibl platform can then oversee these cross-functional ideas through to completion or rejection.
Why is this important
McKinsey research found that around 60% of enterprise innovation is sourced externally. That figure is not isolated to just suppliers. It also includes customers and independent research centres. The research also revealed that 25-45% of revenue comes from innovative products. Also, external innovations typically commercialize quicker 40% faster than internal ones.
Mark Perera, founder, and CEO for Vizibl, commented: “The unprecedented nature of COVID-19 has forced companies, and industries, to rethink and transform their supply chain models and supplier ecosystems for good. The new Innovation Hub will allow organisations to drive sustainable business growth across their supplier ecosystems, whilst also increasing competitive advantage and market growth through supplier diversity. This will empower procurement teams with advanced collaboration and innovation capabilities that outperform their industry peers in both top and bottom-line performance, helping them to really add value and drive their procurement initiatives forward.”
The future of the Innovation hub
In time, Vizibl will open up the innovation hub to other third parties, including potential suppliers and other organisations. This could possibly include customers, though Vizibl does not mention this. The hub provides a collaboration platform to connect lines of business with these third parties to innovate at scale.
Vizibl has a detailed roadmap for the Innovation hub. At launch, the platform includes:
- Opportunity Capture Forms,
- Transition from opportunity to project
- Opportunity and Project dashboard
- Opportunity measurement to track the value of ideas
Future iterations will include
- An ‘Initiatives’ component to automate the process of inviting suppliers to submit opportunities.
- Opening up the platform to external stakeholders with a secure portal
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
This latest iteration of the Vizibl supplier collaboration platform enables companies to leverage their supplier network’s expertise truly. Importantly, it makes it easier for suppliers to interact with and highlight each supplier relationship’s true value. Tracking the value of each idea is sensible. It means that a smaller supplier can add value beyond the scope of their production capability, highlighting their importance against a larger competitor that can offer volume discounts.
The Innovation Hub will allow organisations to balance their supply chains better. It will also ensure that those producing quality ideas are treated equitably. It will be interesting to see is where those ideas come from. The innovation hub provides a neutral platform that will allow suppliers to offer up ideas with the risk of unconscious bias, rejecting them early in the process. Organisations should treat ideas on merit alone, the Innovation Hub enables this.
