Sopheon Corporation – Your Partner for Innovation Performance

In today’s networked economy, it is difficult for established enterprises to sustain profitable business growth. Good ideas can emerge from anywhere, and enterprises need to reevaluate their approach to innovation. Many are aware they are suffering from inefficiencies in their innovation process due to disjointed processes and tools they have adopted over the years. At the same time, they seem to be slower to invest in new Enterprise Innovation Management (EIM) solutions that can provide competitive advantages. Sopheon is a provider of complete EIM solution including software, expertise, and best practices.

Headquartered in Minneapolis, the company has operating units in the United States, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany. The company was formerly known as PolyDoc and changed its name to Sopheon plc in 1999. Sopheon plc was founded in 1993 and is based in the West End, the United Kingdom. Sopheon's customers are in a range of industries and include such companies as BAE Systems, BASF, Cadbury, Celanese, Electrolux, General Motors, Honeywell, PepsiCo, Motorola, and Verizon Wireless.

Sopheon is known for its innovation management software, called Accolade. The software – or most commonly categorized as product portfolio management (PPM) application – is used to align and connect otherwise siloed organizations, drive best-practice innovation processes, and enable fast, iterative decision-making in the face of increased pressures from markets that are constantly changing.

Accolade, Accolade- Go, Integration, Cloud, and Accelerators are a few of the various software solutions and services offered by Sopheon for product lifecycle management. The company also offers services such as assessments, consulting, implementation, training and support, cloud services and many others.

Accolade – Sopheon’s Innovation Management Software

The Accolade solution helps manufacturers and service providers achieve sustainable market differentiation by synchronizing strategic road mapping, idea development, and innovation process execution. In layman’s terms, the objective of Sopheon’s Accolade is to help organizations make better business decisions about which products to develop, and bring a greater number of profitable new products to market faster.

Accolade is an end-to-end innovation management software solution that synchronizes company direction, people, resource, and investments. It improves the coordination of executive decisions with day-to-day functional activities. With Accolade, users must be able to visualize, explore, prioritize easily, and resource portfolios of new product development and innovation investments. 

Why Accolade? Accolade is proven to –

• Increase Portfolio Value by 75-100% - Align and optimize product portfolios with strategic targets
• Reduce Time to Market by 15-30% - Meet product launch dates, secure competitive advantage and improve profit margins
• Increase Product/Initiative Success by up to 50% - Focus on the right projects at the right time to see success rates skyrocket
• Reduce Costs by 10-20% - Optimally drive cost takeout initiatives to achieve financial and strategic goals

Accolade supports and connects people and daily workstreams across departments and functions. This cross-functional collaboration and synchronization result in trusted, real-time data for faster, better, and more dynamic decision making. Irrespective of the company’s size, Accolade provides the visibility required for managing individual initiatives as well as managing portfolios and programs and optimizing them against strategic goals.

“The ability to model and evaluate various portfolio scenarios is particularly compelling, supporting our efforts to implement the optimal mix of investment vs. reward and overall alignment to goals,” said the Parker Hannifin Corporation, about Accolade.

Accolade was the first product to be certified as Stage-Gate Ready on Version III Criteria by Stage-Gate International. Accolade powers some of the world’s largest industrial engineering and construction capital projects, including massive chemical industry projects. Companies of the world’s leading brands use Accolade for their NPD (New Product Development) PPM strategies, initiatives, and projects.  Accolade solution covers all four Project and Portfolio Management market segments – PPM for IT, Product Development, Professional Services, and for Engineering and Construction.

PPM for IT software primarily focuses on supporting IT projects and the allocation of specialist IT resources. PPM for Professional Services Accolade software can help organizations weigh and optimize opportunities, track projects from sales lead to invoice, better match resources to demand, and track hours and billability. PPM for Engineering and Construction supports firms in that segment to sustain and continuously improve reliable delivery on large, complex and high-cost projects while improving process efficiency and meeting profit margin objectives. The bottom line is – Companies can increase the probability of success for their product portfolio investments with Sopheon’s Accolade project portfolio management software. 

Andrew Michuda, Chief Executive Officer

Andrew Michuda was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Sopheon in September 2000. Prior to Sopheon, he served as CEO and Executive Director of Teltech Resource Network Corporation, which was later acquired by Sopheon. Mr. Michuda also held senior leadership positions at Control Data.

Mr. Michuda is an internationally recognized expert and speaker on the use of innovation management tools and best practices to improve critical business processes, such as new product development and innovation performance. An alumnus of the University of Madison, Mr. Michuda is often considered a pioneer in the field; he began designing and guiding the implementation of knowledge management and new product development solutions for Fortune 500 companies and other large multi-nationals in the early 1990s.

“Our mission is to provide our customers with world-class innovation solutions to achieve exceptional long-term growth and profitability through sustainable innovation.”

“We digitalize enterprise innovation management through software, services, and best practices.”

"Our customers use our enterprise innovation management software and services to align and connect their organization, drive best-practice innovation processes and enable fast, iterative decision-making in the face of increased pressures from ever-evolving markets."

"Accolade will support your organization to make informed decisions efficiently by enabling transparency, harmonization, and alignment across your cross-functional teams."