Crikey! Now Thats Innovation!

7/8/2013

At the end of June, Market Dojo announced the release of their Innovation Portal, a structured way for companies to collaborate with suppliers on defined opportunities or challenges. The development of the portal was made possible by a grant from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), a UK-based agency with the goal of accelerating economic growth by stimulating and supporting business-led innovation. As described in the grant application, the portal will give buyers an efficient tool to gain significant savings quickly, whilst also capturing cost saving opportunities and integrating suppliers into the whole process. The Innovation Portal fills the gap between overly idealistic (and amorphous) brainstorming with suppliers and the structured, buyer-defined data collection of an RFx. In a recent blog post about the portal, Market Dojo offered this description, This simple, yet effective, way for managing the early stages of ideas will help pave the way for a possible Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Information (RFI). It gives the opportunity to efficiently examine blue sky thinking and forge closer relationships with your suppliers. It truly allows for a collaborative framework with your suppliers to rapidly progress innovation. It would be unrealistic to expect an organization to build a better way for buyers to innovate with their suppliers without being innovative themselves. It is not necessary to look further than Market Dojos leadership team to see that they are leading by example. Even in the course of a relatively straightforward demo, their unique perspective is made clear. They describe the connections between users, suppliers and events in a follower context rather than using traditional hierarchy terminology, demonstrating an emphasis on familiar networking concepts in the design of the Innovation Portal. Just as Market Dojo pushed forward to design and implement the next valuable tool for buyers, they expect what they learn to change the status quo. Rather than defending their eSourcing solution as-is, they welcome opportunities to improve it based on how companies implement the Innovation Portal, fully accepting that everything can be made better with more usage and feedback. In our hour-long conversation, I heard more than one Crikey! before an energized explanation of what they hear from customers and what they envision for the future. [A note to our American readers: crikey is, in fact, a real word and we verified that it begins with a c not a k.] The real value of the Innovation Portal is that it takes an activity that traditionally happens outside of an eSourcing solution (or worse yet, doesnt happen at all) and provides just enough structure to generate actionable results. The core structure in the tool starts with an Idea something that can be initiated by either a Host (buyer) or a Participant (supplier). After entering a brief description, a deadline, and relevant documents/attachments, the Idea is sent to Participants for their responses. When responses are received, they are scored using either a simple or scorecard approach. The user interface is simple with an emphasis on visual information display. Regardless of the scoring method chosen, the results are displayed in bubble graphs and spider charts. Since the process of innovation through the portal is intended to be as collaborative as carrying out the solution, it supports an

7/10/2013

2
iterative, multi-round process where buyers provide feedback based on each response as well as the pool of responses received. Like the rest of the Market Dojo eSourcing software, the Innovation Portal is hosted in the cloud and follows a transparent pricing model. Sign up for a monthly/annual plan or pay as you go with credits. The applications of the Innovation Portal are endless. It is easy to imagine buyers using it to solve a localized problem by involving all providers of a given product/service or to allow non-incumbent suppliers the opportunity to set themselves apart in advance of an RFx. The portal is part of their eSourcing tool and appears on the dashboard with all other current events and activity for the buyer or supplier. Dont make the mistake of thinking that Market Dojo put all of their innovation into the portal, however. Bigger things are on the horizon, and weve already had a sneak peak. A launch of new functionality is planned for the fall. In the meantime, all we can say is Crikey! If you are interested in more on the Innovation Portal: - Watch an overview of the Innovation Portal on YouTube - Read Creating a Request for Ideas on The Secret Diary of Market Dojo blog - Contact Market Dojo for a demo: +44 (0) 117 230 9200 info@marketdojo.com Twitter: @marketdojo

About Market Dojo We are a pioneering software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that offers professional, intelligent and easyto-use online negotiation software at commoditised pricing. In our brief existence so far, we have marked a number of fantastic milestones. Here are some of the highlights: founding the company in August 2010. releasing version 1.0 of the software in late November 2010. first e-auction, a great success with 25% saving. Adding in RFQ capability, April 2011. first e-auction that required zero training of either the buyer or the suppliers it was worth over 1m as well! first customer self-sign up and go. welcoming our first Fortune 500 customer. being awarded a TSB grant. signing our first site license agreement. In fact, there are just too many to list. In terms of who we are, there are three of us who lead the company: Alun Rafique, Nick Drewe and Nic Martin. All three of us are University of Bristol graduates, two of us in Engineering and one in Physics. Our previous employers include Rolls Royce, PwC, Ansys and Attensity, giving us nearly 30 years of Management, IT and Procurement consultancy experience. For more information, visit www.marketdojo.com.

7/10/2013

3
About Buyers Meeting Point Buyers Meeting Point is an online knowledge and professional development resource for procurement and supply management professionals. Our mission is to support overburdened professionals by making information accessible by centralizing access to resources on our site, by digesting content and evaluating sources looking for the highest quality information, and by making sure all our coverage is done clearly and simply with no presupposition of pre-existing knowledge or experience. There is a world of information available to you and our site and resources provide an avenue for you to gain market knowledge and expertise from others and to apply them where appropriate for your business. Watch our news articles and blog postings for information on webinars, solutions, research reports, publications and whitepapers being discussed by your colleagues. Make sure you get a well-rounded perspective on procurement by reading our Flip Side content featuring "The Sales Guy". We are convinced you will find something among our resources to assist you with your current challenges. For more information, please visit www.buyersmeetingpoint.com or email management@buyersmeetingpoint.com Join Us, Learn With Us, Grow With Us Buyers Meeting Point

7/10/2013