Bringing innovative new products and services to life takes more than just a great idea. You need the right people, resources, and strategy to turn concepts into reality. That's where procurement programs like crowdsourcing challenges and requests for proposals can help - by connecting you with top talent to make your vision a success.
Today, we will extend our knowledge of how organizations of all kinds are using the best platform for procurement services to tap into new thinking, accelerate innovation, and deliver results. You'll discover what types of programs best fit different goals, how to design and run competitions to get the solutions you seek, and why partnering with experts pays dividends.
By the end, you'll have all the knowledge you need to start executing procurement initiatives that engage fresh perspectives, meet key objectives, and yield real-world impact. Let's get started transforming your ideas into game-changing solutions!
Public and private sector organizations have utilized traditional processes like internal R&D to develop new products and services. But increasingly, they are embracing open, competitive models that cast a wider net for innovation.
Procurement programs offer many benefits over old-school approaches:
With these benefits, it's no wonder organizations like NASA, LEGO, The Rockefeller Foundation, and Unilever have embraced procurement programs to fill innovation gaps.
Procurement platforms like Carrot offer a range of program models optimized for different goals:
Perfect for seeking breakthrough concepts, crowdsourcing challenges ask for help by presenting the problem and incentivizing solutions through both prize purses and non-cash rewards. Open to anyone, you can start a successful crowdsourcing challenge to attract diverse perspectives and specializations.
RFPs work well for sourcing near-term vendor solutions fitting defined criteria. They invite pre-qualified vendors to submit detailed proposals and select winners via expert review. Example: A city government issued an RFP to replace outdated parking meters, reviewing bids from qualified tech vendors.
These programs help foundations and nonprofits surface innovative community-informed solutions. Applicants compete for philanthropic investment to scale their ideas. Example: The MacArthur Foundation's 100&Change awarded $100 million to combat major global issues of our time.
The best programs align objectives with incentive structures, participant profiles, submission formats, and evaluation methods. Follow these best practices when architecting your initiative:
Articulate focused goals and the specific problems you want to be addressed. Avoid overly broad challenges - targeted focus attracts more specialized solvers.
Monetary prizes attract participation. Scale awards to expected effort levels. Also utilize non-cash incentives like recognition, networking, learning, and real-world impact.
Promote your challenge in channels that reach your target participants' personas, like students or industry professionals. Ensure accessibility for both amateurs and experts.
Submissions should provide the necessary data for evaluating solutions while minimizing barriers to participation. Clearly outline the specific content and information that participants are expected to include in their submissions.
Clearly communicate what is required from participants and how their work will be evaluated. Providing this information helps set expectations, and fosters trust.
Provide resources like tutorials, mentorship, FAQs, and office hours to support participants and ensure success. Build a community that outlives your program.
Once you have defined the program strategy, carrying out an effective competition involves coordinating many moving parts. Here is an overview of key steps:
Market through channels that reach your ideal participants. Engage influencers and media. Promote via email, social campaigns, events, sponsorships, and partner networks.
Make registration intuitive. Guide participants on application requirements. Collect submissions through online forms, written documents, videos, or other specified formats.
Recruit expert judges aligned with your goals. Provide reviewer training and calibrated scoring tools to minimize biases and inconsistencies.
Evaluate the highest-scoring solutions to determine winners that best deliver your desired outcomes. Give comprehensive feedback to help applicants improve, even if not selected.
Notify and celebrate winners. For co-creation contests, develop winning concepts into products. Fulfill non-cash prizes like meetings with leadership.
Executing a seamless, successful procurement program requires specialized expertise across strategy, marketing, operations, and technology. Rather than build these capabilities in-house, partnering with experienced services like Carrot accelerates results.
The Carrot team tailors solutions that guide you from scoping through program execution using their proven methodology refined across 200+ programs. Their flexible model adapts to your specific needs and goals. Services include:
Carrot enables organizations to implement procurement programs rapidly and effectively while focusing internal resources on core operations. Their specialized expertise reduces risks, ensures best practices, and delivers maximum ROI.
Below are examples of two very different programs made successful through Carrot's services.
To spur innovations needed for future space missions, NASA pioneered open prize competitions like the NASA Universal Payload Interface Challenge, managed end-to-end by Carrot. Integrating diverse payloads onto launch vehicles is complex. Through an open innovation approach, NASA sought an optimized universal payload interface system to streamline integration for easier, faster, and cheaper access to space.
For NASA, crowdsourcing through Carrot facilitated tapping new sources of innovation while achieving significant cost and time efficiencies.
The Prebys Foundation aims to advance equity, excellence, and opportunity for San Diego residents. To address growing youth mental health needs, the foundation sponsored Prebys Sparx - an open innovation challenge for nonprofits to propose arts/culture programs promoting youth behavioral well-being.
For the Prebys Foundation, achieving social impact through an open, competitive process is delivering better results than traditional grant making. Their partnership with Carrot has enabled the foundation to run this ambitious challenge seamlessly.
Organizations worldwide are embracing open, competitive models to access broader innovation ecosystems. But executing effective procurement initiatives requires specialized expertise and platforms. That's where the best platform for procurement services like Carrot can set your program up for success.
With Carrot as your partner, you can build communities of passionate problem solvers hungry to tackle your innovation challenges. The collective brainpower of the crowd can accelerate progress on your most pressing issues. And you only pay for success, not internal overhead.
Don't leave innovation to chance. Join the open innovation movement and start executing procurement programs today.
