Resources Library

Current generative AI has the potential to automate work activities that absorb 60-70% of employees’ time today according to McKinsey. Now, innovation scouts can save hours of manual research with the help of GenAI to identify potential partnerships and emerging trends.

These tools are so easy to use that any innovator can cut down on manual scouting time to source more relevant solutions for the needs of their business unit, faster. In this article we’ll cover a few best practices to accelerate preliminary scouting with AI, and more specifically, how to leverage Bloomflow’s AI Scout.

Best practice #1: Use AI as an assistant, not a replacement

It's essential to approach AI as a collaborative sidekick that enhances your scouting capabilities rather than treating it as a substitute for human input. AI can save you significant time by helping you quickly understand complex and technical topics you may not be familiar with. This preliminary understanding can help you interpret the request, converting the problem statement into a startup. Furthermore, it helps you cut through marketing jargon to quickly understand what the startup actually does.

When using an AI for scouting, remember it's the human touch, your industry knowledge, and your ability to interpret the context that brings true value to these insights. Once the first round of results starts coming in, take the time to research the solutions and evaluate their potential fit and impact on your goals. In your research, you’re likely to come across ideas to help you iterate on or refine your AI-enhanced search.

It's worth noting that AI models can occasionally produce unusual or fake results — this is known as 'hallucination.' To minimize this, be sure to check if the result is verified on Crunchbase or LinkedIn, in the verified results column. For any unverified results, be sure to click over to their website to conduct your own research before adding any leads to your portfolios.

‍

Best Practice #2: craft a clear and direct prompt tied to your goals

Ready to discover new potential partners? The first thing you need to do is to come up with a prompt that's tied to what you want to achieve. Are you trying to solve an operational problem that's holding your team back? Or maybe you're on the hunt for solutions that align with your corporate strategic axes?

When writing your prompt, make sure to keep it structured and precise. Think of it as giving directions - the clearer you are, the more likely you are to end up where you want to go. A well-thought-out prompt will help the AI understand what you're looking for and deliver results that are spot-on and truly useful.

Example prompts for Bloomflow’s AI Scout

• Give me a list of startups [using generative AI for health and wellness]
• Generate top startups [helping companies reduce their carbon footprint within the Retail industry]
• Give me startups revolutionizing [industry]
• Give me innovative companies in [industry]
• How can we solve [problem statement]
• Find startups similar to [company]

Best practice #3: curate results with follow-up questions and commands

Once you’ve got an interesting list of results from your AI Assistant, don’t stop there! Use prompts to hone in on the most relevant results.

Does your company or project have specific requirements for the partners you’re scouting? Tell it to add a column to display the information desired, or simply remove some results. For startups you might have requirements around the maturity or size. Ask the AI Scouting Assistant to narrow down results to startups at least 5 years old, or who have 50 or more employees. Or perhaps you only want to work with a partner local to your country or region for security requirements for ease of collaboration.

The more you drill down your results before adding them to your portfolio, the higher data quality you’ll have on your innovation management platform. When filtering results, we recommend feeding the AI one command at a time. For example, ask it to remove startups less than 5 years old. Once results are updated, tell it to add a column with last funding date.

Example prompts to drill down results

• Remove companies [less than 2 years old]
• Only show companies with [500 or more employees]
• Add a column with [latest round of funding]
• Add a column with [founding date]
• Only give me startups based in [country]

In conclusion, AI offers an invaluable tool for innovation scouting, streamlining the process and increasing efficiency. By using it as an assistant, crafting clear prompts tied to your goals, and thoroughly drilling down results, you can maximize its potential and elevate your scouting efforts. With Bloomflow's AI Scout, anyone can become a scout and discover innovative solutions that drive business growth.

Learn more about how Bloomflow can help you identify innovative solutions

‍

Paris - Bloomflow, a leading enterprise innovation management platform, announces the launch of AI Scout, a self-serve scouting solution available directly within its platform to drive efficiency. 

AI Scout is powered by generative AI to streamline scouting processes, enabling users to efficiently pinpoint startups that align with their specific business needs. By minimizing manual tasks such as startup verification and dreadful data entry, AI Scout lightens the load for innovation teams and others responsible for scouting activities, empowering them to concentrate on more strategic initiatives.

‍"We see this happening at every major event, from Vivatech to CES to London Tech Week, partnerships between large enterprises and startups continue to grow. Whether it’s for venture clienting, CVC investments, or simple B2B partnerships, finding the right solution can be very challenging in this noisy ecosystem," says Raphaël Guillet, CPO.

"With innovation becoming increasingly decentralized, teams often don’t have the expertise and frameworks to identify startups that can help solve their problems. When we created AI Scout, we wanted to empower these teams with guidance and a massive efficiency boost in their scouting work. They engage with AI Scout using natural language, get support to refine, rank, and qualify solutions and effortlessly add them to their partner portfolio."

‍

AI Scout is seamlessly integrated into the Bloomflow platform, offering users a user-friendly chat experience to initiate searches, receive curated results, and refine selections based on their needs.

"We're super excited to announce our first big launch driven by AI. We've been experimenting with different models, making sure they're just right in terms of performance and usefulness while ensuring that our clients can safely use them,” says Ghislain de Juvigny, CTO at Bloomflow.

‍“Introducing AI Scout—we're really proud of it. And guess what? It's just the start! We've got a whole bunch of AI powered features lined up, all built on the solid technical base we've been working on with LLMs over the past few months.”

Key Benefits:

• Streamlined Scouting: Cut through the noise of the bustling startup ecosystem with tailored results based on complex queries, facilitating swift decision-making.
• Time Savings: Liberate yourself from manual tasks like sifting through marketing websites and blogs, verifying the legitimacy of startups, and cross-referencing your existing partner portfolio, redirecting your focus towards building impactful partnerships.
• Automated Data Entry: Ensure data accuracy and reliability with automatic pre-filling of relevant fields, reducing the time needed to create new startup profiles.‍
• Enhanced Collaboration: Foster innovation by empowering internal subject matter experts to contribute to scouting efforts, amplifying the search for innovative solutions.
  ‍

Schedule a demo to experience the power of AI Scout

Looking to boost user involvement on your innovation platform? We know engaging users is vital, but getting them to use the platform effectively is what truly drives innovation and growth.To enhance user engagement on your innovation platform, consider hosting strategic events.

These events allow users to experience the platform's benefits firsthand, build awareness, and provide training. They foster collaboration and a sense of community, driving adoption and innovation.

At Bloomflow, our objective is to cultivate an innovative community where everyone actively participates and collaborates. We understand the importance of incentives in engaging people, so we're committed to motivating and recognizing outstanding ideas that drive progress and creativity. Based on our clients' experiences, rewards have proven to attract more users to their platforms, and we're excited to pass on some of their effective strategies.

In our upcoming infographic, we offer practical advice on how to establish a stimulating environment where rewards play a significant role in fostering innovation, facilitating knowledge-sharing, and fostering collective success.
‍

Effective communication strategies are key to elevating user experience, fostering collaboration, and ultimately driving adoption of our platform. In this infographic, we will explore actionable steps to optimize both internal and external communication to unlock new opportunities for innovation and growth.

In today's rapidly changing business landscape, it’s not only innovation teams who are using idea management solutions to find new solutions and encourage fresh thinking among employees. If you're considering implementing an idea management platform in your business unit, here are three key features you need to look out for:

1. Design that drives user engagement

Have you ever started filling out a form just to quit halfway through because it’s not worth the headache? Design and usability of your idea management platform is crucial for employee engagement. If your team finds it hard to use or navigate, they'll soon lose interest.

So, when choosing your platform, make sure it's simple to use and has a user-friendly design. The experience should feel as easy as using any modern website and beloved b2c app. That means users can easily find what they're looking, functionalities are intuitive, and visual elements bring the page or app to life. Remember, this is a place where your team should inspire and feel inspired!

Finally, a great design isn't static. It should evolve based on user feedback and needs. Therefore, choose a vendor committed to continuously improving the platform based on users' experiences and suggestions.

2. Best-practice templates to hit the ground running

With the plethora of idea management literature out there, it can be overwhelming to set up your first campaign. That’s why guidance should be included in your idea management platform with off-the-shelf templates so you can hit the ground running.

Templates give you a head start by providing a structure for generating and managing ideas. They should match your goals and needs, including defining submission forms and idea stages. Plus, they should be flexible enough for you to change the wording to fit your company. For example, do you want to ask for “ideas,” “feedback,” or “best practices?”

Finally, these tried-and-true templates ensure you follow industry best practices. They’re based on the most common processes being followed by thousands of companies across sectors. Forget about re-inventing the wheel - unless you’re running an idea campaign on the future of mobility!

3. Connectivity to your innovation management platform to streamline implementation

Once your campaign is over and winning ideas have been selected, what next? Your idea management platform should easily connect to your innovation management platform to avoid falling into the idea sandbox syndrome where ideas accumulate but lack concrete follow-up.

Having both platforms integrated speeds up the process of turning an idea into action. This connectivity also allows you to better leverage existing partners in your portfolio who could help implement the idea, saving even more time.

Finally, having your entire innovation funnel managed on a single platform means more accurate and holistic analytics from idea to implementation. You should also be able to track topics such as your most engaged internal innovators, hot innovation topics, and innovation ROI.

‍

Remember, these three features - simplicity, ready-to-use templates, and connectivity - are crucial for any idea management platform. They'll help to ensure the successful creation and management of innovative ideas within your department.

Our mission is to empower users by providing them with the knowledge and tools necessary to optimize the usage of their innovation management platform. Through our shared expertise, we offer essential strategies to not only boost user engagement and satisfaction, but also establish effective governance for driving adoption within your organization. 

In this infographic, we will explore the key steps you can take to unleash the full potential of Bloomflow and achieve tangible business results. Join us on this journey to harness the power of our platform and propel your organization forward. 

Ready to unleash the full power of your innovation management platform? At Bloomflow, we've gathered tried-and-tested tips from various customer examples to help you create a highly effective onboarding experience for numerous users. By implementing these strategies, you can ensure that every user gets off to a great start and maximizes the benefits of the platform. 

Let's dive in and discover how you can optimize your onboarding process for success.

Paris – Bloomflow is proud to announce the launch of its Idea Management solution, designed to maximize user adoption and engagement among employees and to transform qualified ideas into promising innovation projects.

In today's fast-paced business environment, large enterprises face the challenge of constant transformation. Merely relying on a top-down strategy won’t cut it: teams need to be empowered to fuel this strategy with their in the field knowledge and then actually make it happen.

The need for effective idea generation and management tools that put teams and the user experience at the core has never been greater. Today, many organizations struggle with low user engagement and the challenge of having a long list of ideas and no action afterwards.

Recognizing these pain points, Bloomflow launched its brand-new Idea Management module– the first user-centric solution specifically designed to guide ideas from inception to execution.

Bloomflow Idea Management offers a suite of features tailored to empower teams and streamline the innovation process:

• Run time-bound or ongoing internal challenges: Create customized challenges to spark creativity and collaboration among employees.
• Leverage best-practice templates: Benefit from pre-built templates inspired by leading innovators for rapid onboarding and valuable guidance.
• Target select audiences: Directly engage specific groups within your organization to focus ideation efforts and maximize impact.
• Empower employees: Foster a culture of innovation by providing a simple and engaging platform for idea sharing, collaboration, and voting.
• Review and qualify ideas: Seamlessly progress ideas through the evaluation process to ensure that the most promising ideas receive the attention they deserve.
• Close the feedback loop: Keep employees informed with notifications regarding their idea submission and enable them to track their submission.
• Implement the most promising ideas: Effortlessly transition validated ideas into actionable projects, streamlining the idea-to-project progression process.

Key Benefits:

• Maximize user adoption and engagement: With its user-friendly interface and intuitive design, Bloomflow empowers higher levels of participation and engagement across all levels of tech expertise.
• Fully integrated into Bloomflow’s innovation management platform, Bloomflow facilitates efficient idea progression, enabling organizations to move from concept to execution with ease.
• Scalability: Bloomflow offers an easy-to-use solution that you can get started with quickly and grow with over time. 

‍

Hear from Unilever, a new client who recently added Bloomflow Idea Management to their platform:

‍

Join Our Early Adopter Program

Be among the first to experience the power of Bloomflow Idea Management by joining our Early Adopter program. As we continue to innovate and enhance our platform, Early Adopters will have the opportunity to shape the future of Bloomflow and influence upcoming features and functionalities.

‍

Schedule a demo to learn more