We've had a great experience working with the OIEngine as a software platform and the consultancy team who provide brilliant support alongside the platform. The real power in the platform comes from being built on a design thinking methodology. This allows the platform to be so much more than a place to collect ideas, it provides a systematic way for community members to collaborate with each other and improve their ideas throughout each design challenge. The structure of each challenge is really intuitive and the way each phase of a design challenge builds upon the previous makes it really clear to community members where we are in the process and what is expected of them. This makes their role more enjoyable and meaningful so we get better engagement from them as a result. The individual phases of each design challenge are intuitive and help guide community members to make each idea better. The missions that are a key part of each phase provide guidance and make it super simple for community members to share their ideas. We have achieved great results using the OIEngine which is in no small part thanks to the way the platform is structured and design challenges are managed. The consultancy team are there to support the community manager with suggestions at every stage of a design challenge. They have great experience to draw on and always provide great input and feedback to help make our community more creative and our platform and team deliver more value to the business.

Build on design thinking methodology Multi-phased approach is very easy to set up and manage Flexibility to have as many phases or missions as you like without being complicated for community manager Missions in phases make it easy for community members to contribute Create team function so community members can collaborate on ideas Inspired by function so community members can show how other contributions have inspired them Handy back end functionality to tag ideas for easy synthesis Evaluate phase is two-sided for community to evaluate ideas, but also very easy for sponsor team to evaluate on the platform Consulting support provided is immensely valuable

Community members don't have the ability to tag their contributions Save contribution & publish are separate functions (confusing for community members)

The OI Engine is a key facet of Open Innovation in our business. So far we've run one challenge and have been experimenting with different ways to use the platform such as an open-ended ideas sharing space or directing people through immersions in our stores. The platform is very versatile and the OI Engine team is always excited and full of support when we attempt a new experiment.

The platform is very easy to use, it looks good and the regular software updates just keep making it better. I like that it is infinitely customisable with just a little HTML/CSS know-how, and even without, it's incredibly flexible and so easy to update. The support that the team offers both technically and for community management far surpasses my expectations, they are highly knowledgeable about their product, have high attention to detail, a great response time and wonderful insights to share.