About
The MarketPlace is a digital collaboration platform, for all UniCredit employees, that directly connects people who are willing to share their skills and knowledge with the people looking for specific skills to get the job well done, such as participating in researches, gathering ideas from other legal entities, creating infographics, presentations, videos, websites etc.
Innovation presentation
In today’s dynamic business world, we noticed a complex environment of large multinational corporations that have tight schedules and a multitude of deeply specialized skills in a vast array of fields. It is thus becoming increasingly hard to get the job done alone, or even to properly understand how to best approach it. One can miss out on a quick win if they lack proper skills or time to finish a task. Someone may be perfectly suited to resolve a troublesome situation somewhere else, but no one will know it. Efficiency is low, and opportunities lost!
We wanted to solve key problems, seen in many organizations, such as
• decreasing the use of external resources (people and money), and
• inefficiencies in the time and process of collaborating
• finding the right resources to create products (e.g. infographics, market researches, translations, web design etc.)
And we recognized the opportunities, such as:
• tapping employee potential and talent, regardless of location, a large pool of skills and resources which are available but not visible
• request to use and develop entrepreneurship by people
• supporting culture of cross-border collaboration (since we operate in many CEE countries and around the world)
That is why the MarketPlace was invented. The idea behind it is simple – to bring people together and allow them to remotely work together. The platform allows employees (Assignment Publishers) to ask for help concerning a specific task or a set of skills. On the other hand, other employees (Skill Owners) can provide help thanks to their specific experience, skills and knowledge.
The platform was developed and is entirely managed in-house. A year after its launch, around 4,400 users were actively publishing or applying for assignments. 860 assignments have been published and nearly 260 assignments have been completed. Recently we reached 1 million visits to the platform. The platform is expected to gain even more traction in the following months, after a series of planned updates.
Uniqueness of the project
The product uniqueness starts from the way we have built it. We organised an internal competition and selected employees from different countries with different backgrounds based on their applications. We used the power of diversity in UniCredit.
The core team built the platform in only 3 months, using agile scrum methodology. The team members worked remotely by relying on technology (using video conference, digital Kanban board, internal tool for backlog creation and product design etc.)
The MarketPlace is reinventing the way we work. It provides a very simple, personal solution for every UniCredit employee to resolve issues in their area, and has automatically scaled up to the whole CEE region and beyond. In contrast to other similar platforms, the MarketPlace is not a heavy suite of tools for remote collaboration on projects, but a beautifully simple instrument which enhances our common working experience. This is what makes it unique!
Moreover, as far as we know, there are no other experience like it, at least in banking.
So, let’s sum up. MarketPlace:
• fosters engagement, and creates a more inclusive workplace
• removes geographic barriers and organizational silos to expand opportunities for individuals and teams
• draws people in of their own volition, with the same magnetic pull as social media and online interactions
• not only broadens employees’ exposure to opportunities, it also allows them to use skills that may not be needed in their core job, without having to give up that position or relocate.
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