24 May 2005
New Accolade Version 6.0 Extends Sopheon's Market Leadership in Enabling Successful Adoption of Best-Practice Stage-Gate® Process
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Sopheon, the international software and services company, today introduced the latest version of its flagship Sopheon Accolade® product portfolio and process management system. The nearly 30 new features offered in Accolade version 6.0 are focused on eliminating the administrative, communication and knowledge-sharing impediments to successful adoption of the widely used Stage-Gate® product development process methodology and improving the quality and efficiency of portfolio decision-making.
With greater cross-functional collaboration and multi-application data access features, Accolade 6.0 serves as a central communication center and information repository for product development actions and decision-making. It simplifies and facilitates the use of Stage-Gate® and other gate- or phase-based product development processes. Combined, features of the Accolade 6.0 solution and Stage-Gate® methodology provide organizations with the structure and tools necessary to support innovation and enhance the entire new product development process, resulting in increased revenue from new products.
A study conducted by the Product Development Institute (PDI) and American Productivity and Quality Center confirmed that one of the keys to generating more revenue from new products is having a clearly defined process for moving projects from the idea stage to launch. Seventy percent of the businesses participating in the research said that they had a formal product development process in place. However, only slightly more than half of the participants said that their processes were really being used. "Our studies have consistently shown that merely having a formal and documented product development process has little effect on performance," said Dr. Robert Cooper, president of PDI. "Rather, it's how the process, its activities and recommended practices are implemented that makes the difference. Stage-Gate® won't improve business performance unless it's adopted."
"Sopheon stands out among solution suppliers in the product life cycle management space because of its dual focus on strengthening Stage-Gate® process adoption and increasing decision-making efficiency," said Vasco Drecun, research director and senior analyst for product life cycle management (PLM) research and advisory firm Collaborative Product Development Associates (CPDA). "They have a thorough understanding of what Stage-Gate® is, why it's important, and what's required for it to be successful. Moreover, they've managed to translate that understanding into a best-practice based offering that simplifies use of the process. Their solution addresses both the practical day-to-day performance challenges faced by product development teams and the strategic decision-making challenges of executive stakeholders. Accolade enables organization to get maximum benefit from their implementation of Stage-Gate®."
Cooper, who developed the Stage-Gate® product development methodology, concurred: "One of Accolade's principal strengths is the way in which it clearly, simply lays down the steps of the Stage-Gate® process, automates them, and takes the administrative burden out of executing them. These advantages encourage team members and executive stakeholders to try the system. When they do, they quickly see its value, and trial turns into adoption. Many of the features being introduced in this latest version of Accolade will reduce the time and effort needed for successful process implementation. Accolade will help ensure that your Stage-Gate® process is really used."
Based on extensive research involving customers, partners and industry experts, the features being introduced in Accolade 6.0 are generally designed to strengthen ease-of-use and to provide advanced decision-making support for best-practice process implementation. They include:
Dashboard on the Desktop. Seamlessly integrates Accolade with the user's existing personal productivity tools. Eliminates the need for one-off training, avoids duplication in administrative tasks and reduces the overall need for behavioral change.
Instant deliverables. Allows users to create gate-meeting presentations, complete report templates and develop other process-related materials in minutes. Results in more time to focus on the intellectual and strategic challenges of product development.
Enhanced portal access. Makes it possible for users to find and retrieve information related to their projects without having to look inside multiple applications.
Alignment monitoring. Enables easy evaluation of how well day-to-day project activities align with the performance standards and strategic priorities of the organization.
Integration into User Environment
One of Sopheon's central goals in continuing to evolve Accolade is to create the most user-friendly, efficient product development environment possible. This includes looking for ways to link Accolade to productivity tools that are already available and familiar to Accolade users. For example, key aspects of the enhanced functionality being introduced in Accolade 6.0 were created by integrating widely used Microsoft technologies, including Microsoft® Office Project Server 2003 and SharePoint® Portal Server 2003. "We initially chose Sopheon as a partner in our collaborative product development initiative because we recognized that they are the industry leader in expertise and solutions related to product portfolio and process management," said Tim Low, senior product manager, Microsoft. "What excites us about the partnership today is that it has resulted in an application that uniquely and effectively focuses Microsoft technology on the critical front end of the product development process and the challenge of product innovation. With tight integration to the Microsoft® Office Enterprise Project Management platform and SharePoint® Portal Server 2003, Accolade 6.0 gives product development teams and executives the ability to access and share project-related information from enterprise-wide systems and use that data to make faster, better portfolio management decisions."
Parker Hannifin, the $7 billion global market leader in motion and control systems, has a first-hand perspective on the positive impact that Accolade can have on process implementation success. "One of the principal reasons we selected Accolade was our belief that it would help ensure process adoption across 122 business units and 8 operating divisions," said Bob McAdoo, director of IT applications for Parker. "We rolled out Accolade six months ago in conjunction with the introduction of our Stage-Gate® process. Not only is the system being used, adoption levels companywide have exceeded our expectations. With the enhancements being introduced in the newest version of Accolade, we expect use rates to continue to escalate."
"Studies have shown that companies able to execute on a best-practice, structured product-development process generate an average of 50% more profit from new products than the typical business," said Andy Michuda, chief executive officer of Sopheon. "Sopheon has learned from experience that such factors as ease-of-use, support for knowledge transfer and co