Case Study: Anglian Water achieves employee-driven innovation and sustainability gains with Wazoku's Idea Spotlight

Anglian Water Engages Employees in Open Innovation to Solve Business Challenges

Anglian Water, a UK utility supplying drinking water to more than 2.6 million properties, set ambitious 2020 goals — from zero waste and a 70% reduction in capital carbon to 100% customer satisfaction — and wanted to tap frontline expertise to achieve them. The challenge was fostering a culture of innovation and managing idea generation across 4,000 office and field staff dispersed over a large geographic area.

They launched Think Space, built on Wazoku’s Idea Spotlight, giving all employees a mobile-enabled platform for submitting, discussing, voting on and developing ideas, supported by a monthly governance group, 30 innovation champions and internal promotion. In the first six months the platform produced 60 ideas with several implemented (including biodegradable tree shields and reuse of CO2, nutrients and heat to grow crops); Anglian plans to integrate the tool with its intranet, extend it to customers and suppliers, and track ROI, engagement and other benefits.

Anglian Water

Steve Kaye

Head of Innovation