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Waltham, MA (OBBeC) - InnoCentive has announced the launch of InnoCentive@Work, an internal web-based community, customized and hosted by InnoCentive for its client organizations.

According to the announcement, InnoCentive@Work enables enterprises to realize the benefits of open innovation in an internal setting, bridging silos between departments, recognizing innovative employees and tapping into institutional knowledge. Internal “Seekers” post Challenges to the site, and employees can see and collaborate on each other’s proposed solutions. Later, as companies gain experience with open innovation, InnoCentive@Work provides a straightforward mechanism to elevate difficult Challenges from inside the organization to InnoCentive’s external community of over 160,000 Solvers.

As per the announcement, InnoCentive@Work allows InnoCentive clients to offer an open innovation approach to their employees through a web platform that encourages them to collaborate on complex company problems. In this way, InnoCentive@Work enables companies to more effectively harness the intelligence they already have within their organization.

InnoCentive@Work allows employees to collaborate and view solutions from others. The community features also allow them to provide feedback and recommendations on submissions. Moreover,  InnoCentive@Work can be integrated with Client’s internal reward currency, so that employees who solve internal Challenges can receive meaningful recognition. The software is a secure platform that can be accessed by employees through a single secure sign-on to their own intranet site. Users do not need separate authentication for the InnoCentive@Work site. Additionally, InnoCentive works with Client Seekers to teach them how to write Challenges with the highest likelihood of success. InnoCentive@Work is customized for each organization and can be implemented within 60 to 90 days of purchase.
 
InnoCentive@Work offers easy migration to the external open innovation community. When a Challenge is not solved internally, InnoCentive will help clients post it to the external Marketplace for the InnoCentive community of over 160,000 Solvers to access.

Long-time InnoCentive client Eli Lilly will be rolling out InnoCentive@Work as a component of their R&D strategy starting in Q4 2008, outlines the report.

“As an organization that thrives on innovation, we were particularly excited to collaborate with InnoCentive on the development of this new service,” said  Dr. Bret, Executive Director of Eli Lilly’s chemical product research . “We believe this service will allow us to connect our dispersed global population of employees, each with their own diverse experiences, backgrounds and capabilities, with difficult unsolved problems. I expect this product will allow us to utilize our own internal resources in a completely new way.”