Co-creating a Brighter Future
How Signify is using Viima for collaborative and creative ideation
Industry: Lighting Size: 37 000 employees Location: 70 countries
Signify is the world leader in lighting for professionals, consumers, and the Internet of Things. With approximately 37,000 employees worldwide, and a presence in 70 countries, Signify is unlocking the extraordinary potential of light for brighter lives and a better world.
For the past 125 years Signify has pioneered breakthroughs in lighting and has been the driving force for many innovations.
In brief, the outcomes of systematic use of Viima at Signify has led to:
- improved interaction and communication
- over 1700 ideas from 180 suppliers
- 30% more opportunities than with previous solution
- higher engagement in the ideation process
- simplified, cross-functional, processes
- effortless idea management
SEED Supplier Collaboration Program
Signify is at the forefront of innovation in the lighting industry with products such as LiFi – internet connectivity through light – and UV-C, solar and horticultural lighting. They stay innovative by promoting cross-functional collaboration and leveraging stakeholder knowledge during product and process development.
They achieve this through SEED (Supplier Early Engagement Days), a collaboration program, where they leverage their suppliers' knowledge, expertise, and insights on the latest technology trends to generate ideas for the running portfolios and take out unrewarded complexity.
The SEED program is an exclusive and collaborative initiative, aimed at creative ideation, where only the best suppliers are selected and invited to participate. The global program is running in 11 locations covering roughly a 1B € spend. It culminates in the SEED Convention, a series of regional content-sharing sessions, where Signify leadership and suppliers discuss results, business updates and future actions.
The SEED program starts with a 6-week idea collection campaign involving 180 suppliers who generate ideas on cost reductions, value increase, changes in operations, and new product concepts.
The Challenge
While the program empowers both parties to innovate, it comes with a set of challenges.
As SEED scaled up, managing thousands of data points became too demanding and clunky. Ideas could no longer be collected in simple Excel Workbooks. They had two main issues: version control and feedback loops. It was frustrating for both parties, now losing tremendous opportunities.
To scale their innovation activities, Signify needed a flexible, scalable solution that would allow cross-functional collaboration between hundreds of stakeholders outside their organization.
The Solution
In 2022 Signify started looking for a solution that would significantly enhance their collaboration with suppliers and also enable them to broaden the scope of their work through cross-functional ideation.
After extensive market scouting, they found Viima, which proved to be the perfect solution. It could easily scale with their needs, allowing 180 suppliers and their 800 employees from around the world to participate in the SEED program.
Suppliers quickly adopted Viima because it was simple to set up and use. Within the first few months, Viima significantly improved collaboration and streamlined the ideation process, allowing suppliers to concentrate on new ideas.
The Perfect Solution for Signify
Viima checked all the boxes - enabling feedback, comments, voting, and document sharing from multiple locations through the desktop and mobile app.
The Results
The ease of use enabled a fast adoption, and allowed participants to build on top of each other's ideas, enhancing the cross-functional collaboration that Signify was interested in growing.
Within months, Signify identified 30% more opportunities in the idea collection phase. 180 suppliers generated over 1700 ideas, which made the 2022 SEED Convention the most successful so far.
The great success is attributed to a systematic process of collecting and managing ideas. With the Viima boards, Signify was able to seamlessly scale their process globally, to share and reinforce best practices with suppliers.
The approach led to cost reductions, changes in operations, and new product concepts. Viima received an NPS of 53, proving the satisfaction of all those using the tool for the first time.
Signify continues to use Viima for their SEED program.
They identified other areas of use, which further simplified and improved internal processes and operations.
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Viima immediately resolved the indirect communication in our ideation process and changed it into ‘live’ collaborative ideation.
In the first trials, both the early adopters and the laggards joined and tried out Viima on their mobile phones. A true statement of the solution's simplicity.
The combination of Viima, our suppliers, and the Signify team allowed the fantastic outcome of SEED 2022.
We were looking for an application to support our ideation process with our suppliers: easy to use, everywhere, every time, collaborative and affordable.
We found Viima. The great results talk for themselves. Our suppliers like it.
Viima takes great pride in enabling innovation in forward-thinking organizations, like Signify.
You too, can drive more innovation in your organization! Start with a 7-day free trial, or book a demo for a guided tour.