Exago is making its ReSTART idea management solution available to NGOs and educational and research institutions to help combat the impacts of COVID-19. For-profit organisations also get a software trial period to find new ways to operate and do business in the “new normal”.
Managers can easily launch three or four challenges to selected groups of people or to a wider community, collecting and evaluating ideas in a collaborative way.
“There are many doubts and challenges ahead and there is no immediate return to the day-to-day that we knew before,” says Exago CEO Diana Carvalho. “Therefore, it is necessary to think of ways to allow a possible normalisation on various fronts, but above all in the areas most affected by this pandemic, in Health, Economy and Society,” she adds.
Everyone’s ideas to help businesses and communities
Seeking to make its contribution, Exago adapted its Exago Start solution to the present moment, creating the ReSTART solution to help organisations rethink paradigms and models and find ideas to turn this crisis around, calling on all employees and other relevant partners and entities. And it is offering it for three months to NGOs and educational and research institutions to help mitigate and find answers to the impacts caused by COVID-19.
The solution also exists for companies, focusing on the search for ideas regarding issues such as productivity of people and processes, digital transformation, but also of corporate social responsibility. In this case, the tool is free for a month and part of the proceeds will go to the COVID-Solidarity Response Fund for WHO.
“This is a time of leadership and vision, but also one in which we all can and must make our contribution. The simplest ideas are often the most transformative. And we really need them right now to be able to create innovative responses to the many challenges that are present and those that still lie ahead,” says the CEO of Exago.
Collaborative innovation in action
In Saudi Arabia, the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation is using the Exago software to look for ideas to support the communities and companies most affected by COVID-19 in the countries in which it operates.
In West Africa, the First Bank of Nigeria is looking for answers to improve its processes in daily interactions, connecting with customers and introducing new technologies and new ways of working in the current context.
TOTVS Curitiba, in Brazil, also involved its 130 employees in the search for suggestions to generate more sources of revenue, greater efficiency, optimise remote work and ensure greater proximity with customers at this stage.
In the first three weeks, TOTVS Curitiba employees shared more than 80 ideas, some of which have already been implemented.
Exago software is also the technological foundation of the open innovation initiative TRANSFORM, a joint project by Unilever with the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and EY to scale ideas to address social, environmental and economic problems in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
Among these are fundamental programmes to protect more fragile communities at this time, such as HappyTap, which looks to change behaviours and promote good practices and conditions for handwashing in Bangladesh.
About the Exago software
Exago’s idea management software allows organisations to find, evaluate and build ideas for their main business challenges, in a transparent and collaborative way. More than one million users worldwide have already been able to share their ideas on innovation initiatives inside and outside company walls, in nine languages.
The Exago portfolio includes clients such as Unilever, Carrefour, First Bank of Nigeria, International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation, Ageas, Altice, Barclays, CTT, Fleury and Liberty.
