“In an increasingly competitive world, we see InnovCenter as a way of taking advantage of our most valuable resource, our employees. Now our employees get more motivated and put more of themselves into their work every day, either doing their usual work or responding to challenges with new ideas to create new opportunities that lead to successful projects. Anyone in Mota-Engil can have a voice; now, they have the tools and the guidance to innovate,” said Antonio Meireles, Innovation Manager of Mota-Engil Engenharia e Construção, SA.
"Mota-Engil's InnovCenter encourages, guides and tracks innovative ideas from inception to completion. A powerful tool for innovation, it inspires participation, informs contributors, enables decision-makers and results in successful innovation projects across the company," said usability expert Jakob Nielsen, principal of Nielsen Norman Group. An overview of Mota-Engil InnovCenter will be included with the other nine recipients in Nielsen Norman Group’s report “The Year’s 10 Best Intranets” and discussed at NN/g events this year.
Mota-Engil chose Portugal-based weListen as a technology/consulting partner for the InnovCenter project. weListen was selected in part because the agency provided the type of technical expertise required for such an ambitious project, and because weListen added valuable ideas to augment the team’s own ideas for the project. “weListen was involved from the beginning and they continue to partner with Mota-Engil in improving their software, InnovationCast, the productized version of what they created with us," said Antonio Meireles, Innovation Manager.
InnovCenter takes advantage of Enterprise 2.0 technologies (wikis, rich user profiles, forums, blogs, and activity streams) provided by Dallas-based Telligent. The social platform fosters connectivity and enables collaboration for Mota-Engil employees.
Three people formed the core team for Mota-Engil’s project: Antonio Ruivo Meireles, Innovation Manager; Maria João Veiga, InnovCenter Manager; and Ines Barbosa, Innovation Technician. The team worked across 22 departments to launch the project. Collaborating with Mota-Engil’s team were weListen’s (agency) team members: Carlos Mendes, Leonardo Varella-Cid; Ricardo Lapão; Bruno Lopes; and João Sousa