Innovation Process Management Solution from Microsoft

Office SharePoint Server 2007 acts as the foundation for a new Innovation Process Management Solution with which Microsoft is aiming to win over corporate environments. What the Redmond company is bringing to the table is a suite of technologies in combination with formal processes designed to catalyze innovation. What the Innovation Process Management Solution promises to do is bridge the gap between various resources across an organization that are otherwise disparate.

"Innovation really is a team sport, requiring close collaboration and the alignment of people, processes and supporting infrastructure throughout an organization", explained Don Richardson, director of Worldwide Innovation Management Sales Strategy at Microsoft. This is precisely the task the IPM is tailored to address. Microsoft's Enterprise Innovation Management Initiative provides a way for organizations to centralize ideas from all the corporate tiers, but also focusing on the right people, and providing capabilities such as coordination, monitoring and ultimately assessing the success of results.

"Ideation, knowledge capture, knowledge management, project management and portfolio management all must be synchronized through a formal process to ensure that innovation projects yield success", Richardson added, enumerating the key components of its IPM strategy.

The Redmond company is also placing a great deal of emphasis on the Office Enterprise Project Management Solution connected to the IPM via Office SharePoint Server 2007. In this context organizations are provided with a well structured innovation process infrastructure that drives efficiency and result more than anything else. This is possible by enabling not only collaboration, but also a high level of management and coordination.

"Innovation is a top priority in every industry we serve. Our customers want a systematic approach for managing innovation to garner greater yield, efficiency and speed; this initiative joins employees, suppliers and customers around a formal, end-to-end process to manage innovation for sustained growth", commented Joe Boggio, director of Innovation Management Solutions at Microsoft.