Idea management software structures the process of gathering and developing ideas around business focus areas, including product development, day-to-day processes, customer feedback, market trends, and competitive insights, with the goal of organizing and managing those ideas for improvement or development. Idea management tools allow users to solicit feedback from both internal and external stakeholders.
Idea management software enables companies of all sizes to continuously innovate and grow by deliberately leading the ideation process. Idea management software provides users with custom permissions settings, allowing the user to select the level of transparency and confidentiality required for any given project. Ideas can be collected from all areas of the organization, beyond specialized departments such as R&D, product management, and marketing. These products can integrate with various collaborative tools, such as employee engagement software, employee intranet tools, and enterprise feedback management software, allowing users to manage both internally and externally sourced recommendations.
To qualify for inclusion in the Idea Management category, a product must:
- Engage customers, employees, stockbrokers, etc., via web-based applications and forms
- Gather solicited ideas and feedback onto a central database
- Allow for collaboration, edits, and input on collected feedback
- Have an organized search functionality within the database to select and reject ideas
- Provide a white-label platform that can be branded per customer requirements
- Enable custom workflows to progress ideas through an evaluation funnel
- Include custom reporting and analysis features for full management of the ideation process
