Pros
Having been an Enterprise Admin for 2 years; there are 4 general areas of focus in considering what I like best about Bright Idea.
First, the end-user experience, those that come to a Challenge to submit, vote or comment on ideas. The interface is very straightforward and intuitive. I have yet to receive an end-user inquiry about how to use or what to do. Grade: A+
The next areas is Site (or Campaign) Administration; this is relevant for Challenge and Community Administrators - people running the campaigns. Typically, there is a small learning curve where you can show Managers easy-to-configure functional-widgets which provide a wealth of functionality in an easy to teach/use interface. Functional options can range from simple to advanced and can accommodate users on either plain. Grade: A+
As an Enterprise Administrator, there are a large number of features that can be customized for the Enterprise-wide site or individual Challenge experiences. I had one complaint about this tool is that there are too many features, which at times can feel a little overwhelming to when first learning the product. Grade: A
Finally, Customer Service. The team is outstanding. Very responsive, easily understood, available when needed. This has made a big difference in the success of our use of Bright Idea. Grade: A++
Cons
As an Enterprise Administrator there is a learning curve for many functional options that can take awhile to understand. Also, I am not a fan of some of the terminology such as "webstorm".
Overall, a good experience using the platform. We are continuously increasing usage and participation.
Currently using the platform for idea submissions & collaboration on specific business challenge questions and pitch events. Most recently, we are finding more valuable use cases as a service platform to enable new ways of working & employee engagement through building departmental communities mostly focused around learning + development initiatives (i.e. Job Swap application process, Scholarship application process, joining Diversity and Inclusion initiatives).
Pros
-Ability to set up initiative/challenge pages easily and quickly
-Ability to build out pipelines to evaluate and track ideas's progress, and easily route to the appropriate evaluator(s)
-Good customer support with quick response and resolution turnaround time
Cons
-Needs improvement for more accurate language translation(s) feature
-Clearer differentiation between the various apps. It would be great if there were different templates/lay outs that fit the main purpose of each application. For example, the 'Discuss' app looking more like a discussion board rather than the rest of the applications where each submission is an individual idea board.
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.
Great customer service, abundance of out-of-the box features as well as a company that listens to Customer feedback.
Pros
Outside of the the great customer service the company provides, the ease of use and features are what make Brightidea stand out. Our customers have especially enjoyed the back-end idea management interface to be able to rank, sort, and group ideas that have come in from solvers. With a large company and thousands of ideas flowing in, this is a key features that other platforms have failed to address meaningfully.
Cons
The one potential disadvantage of the tool is that advanced customizations will require professional services support which add up. Out of the box, however, the platform will service 90%+ of the Customer base so that may not be a big issue.
Excellent team to work with, clearly experienced and supporting clients in the field getting things done!
Pros
- Will support you on your innovation program journey as it matures, covering nearly all possible activities in your program with templates and guidance for each!
- Mobile app!
- can be tailored to match what we want to achieve
- overall analytics and pipeline management from idea to delivery
Cons
Its visual identity option (themes and css) are effective but a bit too much work to my liking! It does require you to consider properly the user journey on its homepage in particular.
I have been using the Brightidea Platform to run an idea crowdsourcing contest in my company (international insurer). the Platform is extremely modular and has all the features it takes to make your innovation program a success.
Pros
- modular and easy-to-set up / easy-to-use platform
- brightidea accustomed to dealing with large international groups (security & integration is made easy by the team
- handy tools to get ideas to be evaluated (simple to set scorecards, basic single scale assessment tool...)
- reactive support team in case of technical issues. You are never alone with your problem
- talented team of Professional services team to get you up and running
Cons
- no in-platform design thinking type of "prequel exercise" in order to better identify the user pain point before idea submission
- 2 yr-contracts take the level of users at the end of 1st year as reference point for year 2
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.
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.
Pros
The ease of use of the tool.
The ability for the end users to collaborate and share ideas across all work streams.
The platform captures all submissions and allows the end user group to tailor to their needs what the whole submission and evaluation process consist of.
Cons
When viewing submissions the ease of use can be challenging.
When viewing submission within the pipeline you are not able to see the specific number attached to the submission without hovering over the specific submission.
Being able to tailor the layout of the submission form to meet the end users needs.
Introduction of the software was a catalysts to changing the behaviours and culture of the business whereby challenging each other, sharing problems and solutions and constantly looking for opportunities for improvement are becoming the norm.
Pros
Ease of use and flexibility. The breadth of scope of the platform from initial challenge submission, to idea generation, screening and review through to tracking of results makes it an invaluable tool for generating and managing large numbers of quality ideas and innovations.
Cons
Back end statistical representation could be more effective, the ability to slice and dice data and determine which areas of the business are heavily engaged and also to track commercial benefit of specific challenges, ideas or groups of ideas.
BrightIdea has been a great find. I have experience working with a host of leading solutions, including the likes of Spigit, Imaginatik, Hype, Hyve, etc. but I found BrightIdea to be a cut above the rest. They are passionate and offer you more than just a solution. They bring out the psychology behind actions that help turn around an organization. They are passionate about innovation rather than just merely interested in pushing their product. They are keen to see you become successful using it. They are also patient about letting you get up to speed.
Pros
Ease of setup and configuration
Ease of use (for the user)
Ability to scale up with different use cases of the platform
Pros
Brightidea gives my organization the ability to collaborate more cross functionally and strengthen skills and experiences across the board. We love the ability to post opportunities for others to volunteer for. We also leverage the functionality to be able to solve challenging questions and source for opportunities to simplify and be more efficient at what we do. We connect these opportunities to our performance and coaching sessions for our organization to measure the success that we are gaining using Brightidea. Overall, we are very satisfied with Brightidea and look forward to use it in other creative ways to support growth and experience within our organization!
Cons
The only thing that challenges us is the pricing and limited Admin seats we have. This makes us have to rely on our IT partners for support and administration.
Pros
It’s so simple to set up and managing the challenges we run is first-rate, the support offered is top rate and the portal has a wealth of information.
The ideas space where fellow Innovation programme managers share ideas is a place to see what other organisations are looking at rolling out. Finally, the user experience is very simple which is essential.
Cons
Whilst we can get all of the reporting data we need out of the Brightidea application - improving the real-time dashboards would be something I would like to see improved further
Using BrightIdea to help run our innovation challenge program has been a wonderful experience. The software is easy to use for both admin's and most importantly users. Their features cover all aspects of the innovation life-cycle allowing for everything to be completed and tracked in one place. And their customer support has exceed our expectations, they have done a fantastic job and helping us scale our program in the right ways.
Pros
It's extremely easy for users to understand and use it, thereby making engagement an easy sell. The features they support are also extensive and they continue to add new ones to support a growing program.
Cons
A few bugs have made setup from an admin standpoint more time consuming then they should be, but work around are available and they are quick to respond to our needs.
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)
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!
We are finding great innovative ideas and solutions with our implementation of BrightIdea.
Pros
BrightIdea is a great software for innovation and collaboration. It is easy to use as an administrator. We use it in our organization for a few different functions, including as a platform to crowd source innovation ideas from our employees. BrightIdea has been great because it gives us an easily accessible software to collect and store our innovative ideas.
Cons
I do wish they had a Workplace integration.
A lot of profit' cost saving and innovative thinking.
Pros
This Platform has and easy to use interface and customizability just great for tweaking it for your specific needs.
Cons
It would be great to give out some minor admin permissions like dashboard view access and reporting to ordinary users for limited times. This would allow the people learn more about the system and get involved even more while making life a little bit easier for the system and web storm admins.
Thanks for the review, Serafettin! Many customers leverage our Moderator role to assign light administrative permissions to users. This role is restricted to viewing reporting and light submission management. I hope this will be helpful to you!
Pros
Simple, fast to start an innovation program, easy to use, some nice templates, design our own pipelines.
Cons
Translations, we need to make the platform translate 100% to other languages. More custom templates to choose.
Thanks for the review, Oscar! We intend all end user-facing features and pages to be translatable, and we actively release updates to ensure gaps are resolved. Please let us know if you're seeing gaps, and we'll do our best to address them. And thank you for the feedback on templates - as we work more in this area, we will be reaching out to customers to better understand what they are looking for. Our newest homepage template, which came out with the Fall Release 2017, was designed based one extensive customer feedback.
Successful launching of Open Innovation Program. It's hard to tell the story and show proof of engagement without this tool. Thank you!
Pros
Great customer support from the BrightIdea team, from sales to technical support and training. Wonderful support on boarding new customer and tremendous value.
Cons
User interface design can be a bit more simplistic. e.g. like Apple website, or aesthetics of Apps like Slack.
Thank you for your feedback, Kalvin! It is part of our design process to stay abreast of the modern design landscape - not just within B2B but also for B2C products like Slack - to identify opportunities to continually evolve and update our product. We are also continuing to invest in growing our product design team. We hope you will like the UI/UX for the latest round of product updates that we've made. Over time, we will also be cascading our updated style guide to more parts of our existing platform.
Pros
User friendly, easy to navigate, visually appealing, great customer service, variety of applications
Cons
some things don't make sense to us and are not customizable.
Thank you for your review, Lisa! We do believe that the Brightidea innovation platform is the most customizable solution available on the market. Please do share with us on IdeaSpace if there a particular area where you are getting stuck, or if there is an area that does not seem intuitive to you.
https://bi.brightidea.com/ideas
Pros
The software is easily scalable and easily accommodates our many users. We enjoy being able to launch many different challenges fairly frequently.
Cons
We would love to have more support for 'open ideation' platforms at a large scale. It is valuable for companies to engage their employees beyond ROI of their ideas by making them feel heard and listened to.
Thanks for reviewing, Sarah! We're glad to hear that you find the software easily scalable. We offer a few apps for engaging a broad employee base. The Discuss app allows you to create a dialogue among a large number of employees about important company topics. The Suggest app is meant to support a company-wide idea management process. Please let us know on Ideaspace if you have other opportunities that we should consider.
https://bi.brightidea.com/ideas
Pros
Working with the Brightidea team is always a good experience. They're client-driven, and have continuously worked to improve their product to suit our needs.
Cons
As with many providers of this type of software, getting it set up to track the metrics we need continues to be a bit of a struggle.
It helped us to save lots of time by automation of the certain tasks and also what's more important, it certainly brought a way more organized way of working for the team
Pros
The main advantage of the platform is the high flexibility and customization which allows us to adapt the platform to our needs not vice versa to adapt to the platform. Sometimes it might get overwhelming due to this, though overall I'd say this is a big asset of this platform. Furthermore, the constant improvements are made from the Brightidea team and communicated in a clear understandable way.
We totally love the platform from its idea to the interface and usage. It helps us break down the projects into the categories/silos and supports us work in a way more organized way than before within the team.
Cons
I cannot really name anything big that we dislike. Though, the reporting could be slightly better as it doesn't fully shows the essence when exported, thus, makes it a bit harder to present to the third-party persons. Also, the pricing could be slightly lower.
We use this tool as a customer portal for product enhancements. We've been very pleased overall.
Pros
Their account managers and support are very responsive and update the product with an ear to customer voice. Lots of helpful documentation to help companies learn how to use innovation across the organization.
Cons
Reporting and metrics could use a facelift.
We are a very large company and have been working with Bright Idea for 4+ years. Overall, the experience has been a very positive one with teams using the Ideation software for initiatives such as Process, manufacturing, patient and other areas of improvement. There are tangible benefits to the Ideation process and Bright Idea goes a long way in helping us receive those benefits.