Whether it is for their considered, value-oriented innovation approach, for the creative ways found to bring everyone aboard their innovation challenge, or for their sustained corporate culture of innovation, we are proud to announce the champions of the second edition of the Exago Innovation Guru Awards.

Our 2017 Innovation Guru winners who truly stood out for their performances in the past year are:

The Innovation Bookkeeper: Via Varejo

Few companies weigh up the deciding factors of every idea as carefully as Brazilian retail leader Via Varejo – with an informed, balanced approach to innovation, an eye for detail and a clear concern for the numbers.

With an impressive 2,000 ideas shared in just two months, mostly in best practices and finding the right product for the customer, the Via Varejo team is results-focused, invites participants to understand their ideas from different angles, seeks to balance the tangible and intangible benefits, and looks at the cost advantage of each and every suggestion.

The Innovation Hunter: Ageas

Leading international insurance group Ageas picks up our Innovation Hunter prize for its creative and highly original approaches to encouraging participation and innovation within the company.

From staging the kidnappings of the CEOs with bright ideas as the currency, to offering cakes in return for ideas at a pre-launch phase, Ageas is forever on the hunt for a stronger and more engaging innovation programme: in the 13 challenges launched in the first 9 months, the company engaged almost all business units in the innovation process, with a 42% participation rate and gathering 397 ideas with solid implementation potential.

The Innovation Farmer: CTT

With almost half of Exago platform visitors already participating in the platform throughout 2017, close to 1.5 ideas per active user and thousands of comments shared, the Portuguese national postal service CTT has been sowing the seeds of its innovation programme, strengthened with the use of the Exago innovation software since early 2016.

Along with a dedicated Innovation Day, effective communication initiatives and a solid incentives package comprising excellent prizes, including gadgets, vouchers, festival tickets and experiences, CTT also encourages a global culture of innovation by tying in special events and workshops with participation on the Exago platform.

Congratulations to all Innovation Guru Award winners and to all those who inspire our work at Exago every day!