Wrike Collaborate Recap: A Fireside Chat With Kasey Schmidt From Visa Acceptance Solutions
When it’s Wrike Collaborate season, our team gets excited to nerd out about our product announcements and hands-on training. But what we really love are the sessions that allow our customers to share how they use Wrike to achieve impressive results. This year, we had the pleasure of welcoming Kasey Schmidt, Marketing Technology Lead for Visa Acceptance Solutions, who spoke with Wrike’s Global Customer Experience Lead, Jessica Wooding, about her team’s experience adopting the Wrike platform — and launching a completely new brand with Wrike’s help. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that the entire conversation is a must-watch from start to finish. Kasey’s insight on bringing Wrike into her team offers so many nuggets that listeners can implement in their own organizations, from how to slow-roll a tech change for maximum success, to the nitty-gritty details of how they use request forms to free up their creative team for more high-value work. The great news is that you can watch the entire conversation between Kasey and Jessica (as well as all the other sessions from Wrike Collaborate 2023!) on demand now, for free. Watch session Here’s a sneak preview of their conversation: Jessica: Is there something in the past year that you’ve been able to accomplish, despite all odds, that you’re particularly proud of? Kasey: Yes, we were able to launch a brand in the past year, which was huge. That’s no small feat. I think that speaks to the work that was done with our marketing team and how incredibly diligent they were in launching that brand within a very small timeline. So it’s very satisfying to look back at that work and understand that it went from announcement to launch in just a matter of weeks. We could see the work that’s been developed in a website and a brand identity guide and creative and general strategy to move forward with the growth of that brand. Jessica: Would you say that Wrike was a part of that success in launching the brand? Kasey: Wrike was a huge part of that success. We were really running with Wrike at that point, and it was to see Wrike in action, in our effort to build an entire brand and digital assets and a website and information architecture for that website and all of the creative that’s associated with the launch of that brand, and all of the events that might be associated. Having our team comfortable working in Wrike and understanding the platform to a higher degree and knowing what they needed to do within the platform — to ensure that they had the views set up correctly, that they were requesting creative correctly, and that they could really track how this project was progressing — all of that was paramount to our success. Jessica: How would you say that Wrike is really helping to support you and Visa on this journey? Kasey: Wrike provides an element of visibility that we didn’t have before as an organization. In any big Fortune 500, you’ll see teams on different systems, and teams working across a variety of project management tools. It’s hard to get somebody to log in to five or more platforms on a daily basis just to understand what’s going on with a project. We’ve seen that having all of those teams come into Wrike with one single view of our project management has been so helpful in clarifying where we’re at in certain workflows. And it’s really enabling people to work better and become less frustrated as they’re working on specific projects. Jessica: That’s beautiful. Now, you mentioned that there are multiple teams at Visa who are using Wrike. What are some of those teams that are using it and is it cross-functional or are they all in one department? Kasey: The way that we rolled out Wrike, I’ve been really impressed with our team and just how diligent we’ve been in ensuring that we’re taking a crawl-walk-run approach. We really did start slow and we made sure that our core teams were in there. Our creative team specifically was our first use case, then we slowly brought in our email teams, our events teams, our campaigns teams, and our content and creative strategy teams, and even some agency partners. We’ve actually expanded outward now to include additional marketing teams at Visa or other teams as well, not just marketing, which has been really cool, too. But with that comes a larger visibility as we’re seeing what’s going on across the organization. And I think that’s so helpful, especially as we start to realize that we can all operate in a matrix and we can’t just live in our silos. We’ve learned that it’s really critical to ensure you understand what’s going on across your organization and you maintain that level of communication. Jessica: Think back to life before Wrike — what was it like collaborating on those processes before you guys were using Wrike? Kasey: Oh my gosh, it just took us so long. That’s really the key takeaway. We used a few different project management tools and it took us a really long time to come to a consensus on what was going on. From a product management standpoint, when you’re asking a user to sift through information to find exactly what they’re looking for, it’s never going to create a positive experience. Naturally, we’re always thinking externally to our customers and considering how we can optimize their experience in the customer journey. But every now and again, it’s really important to step back and think, OK, what can we do for our internal team to ensure that they’re productive and maintaining the level of efficiency that ensures that they’re happy, healthy employees? We saw that as a huge opportunity, so we focused on choosing really good technology that met our use cases and was there to help us create a system and a flow in which everyone was comfortable in the user interface and we all were working in the same place. *** You’ll have to head over to the Wrike Collaborate 2023 on-demand page to watch the rest of the interview. While you’re there, make sure you watch our product updates as well! Watch session
Collaborate 2023: Wrike Lightspeed Sessions You Need to See
The year ahead is pointing to fresh challenges in work efficiency and our new work management platform, Wrike Lightspeed, can unlock peak productivity. To help you get even more out of Wrike, we created Collaborate, our conference for modern work efficiency, to help improve your insight into modern work management challenges and learn how individuals, teams, and organizations like yours leverage Wrike to increase efficiency. At Collaborate 2023, our incredible lineup of speakers focused on helping you learn how to tackle challenges and thrive in a tough economy. Here’s a peek into the Wrike Lightspeed-focused sessions at Collaborate. Try Wrike for free 1. Meet Wrike Lightspeed: Your New Work Experience — Beau Roberts and Andrey Moskvin Overview Beau Roberts, Design System Architect, and Andrey Moskvin, Senior PMM for Platform Marketing, both from Wrike, teamed up to share the latest and greatest from Wrike Lightspeed. The session included the motivation behind the change, the new Wrike Lightspeed design, key highlights of the latest release, reimagined Wrike views and navigation, AI updates, and a long-awaited feature unveiled! It was a very exciting session! Wrike Lightspeed aims to improve the initial experience for small teams, while also benefiting all users. It focuses on personalization to tailor Wrike to your workflow, saving time to make essential details easily accessible, and brightening workdays to modernize the interface. You do not want to miss this session to be up to date on all things Wrike Lightspeed! Key takeaways 99% of our users are now enabled with the modern and intuitive Wrike Lightspeed design Maximize work efficiency with our modern, joyful, and frictionless workspace Draft project plans, generate event briefs, or simply digest long conversations right in the new Item view Delegate daily routines to Wrike’s intelligent platform and reclaim time for more meaningful work Bonus announcement: Dark Mode is coming to your Wrike workspace in the next few weeks! Watch now 2. Maximizing Adoption Using the New Wrike Lightspeed — Amanda Stephens and Jim Richmond Overview In this enlightening conversation, Jim Richmond, a Solutions Consultant at Wrike, interviewed Amanda Stephens, VP of Operations at seoplus+, about how the adoption of Wrike Lightspeed has evolved the digital marketing agency further than it ever thought possible. The discussion revolved around the before, during, and after stages of seoplus+ adopting Wrike Lightspeed. Manual systems and a lack of features led seoplus+ to research a new work management platform. Wrike came out as the top choice. The agency took several steps to carefully launch Wrike, including appointing ambassadors, a beta test, training, and continual feedback. You don’t want to miss this deep dive into how Wrike changed the game for seoplus+! Key takeaways Wrike’s blueprints, request forms, commenting abilities, and intuitive UI solved pain points for seoplus+ Key metrics: 13% increase in employee NPS score 98% client retention 26% revenue growth after launching Wrike How Wrike can drive employee satisfaction, client retention, and revenue growth for rapidly scaling agencies like seoplus+ Watch now Welcoming you all to Collaborate Our favorite part of Collaborate 2023 was seeing all our attendees engaging with the platform and the sessions. We can’t wait to see you at our next work management conference — in the meantime, you’re welcome to watch Collaborate 2023 back with our on-demand sessions. Whether you were there in real time and want to rewatch something or you couldn’t make the live event, head here for on-demand access to Collaborate. See you next year!
Top 5 Highlights From Collaborate 2023
Collaborate 2023 was a landmark event, reshaping the future of collaborative work and project management. This year’s gathering was a true knowledge hub — offering deep insights into the latest trends, tools, and methodologies that are shaping the modern workplace. When you consider that 77% of business leaders now prioritize efficiency, and 52% of organizations believe they won’t survive a recession without efficiency measures, it’s no surprise that efficiency was a central focus at Collaborate 2023. Our speakers and Wrike experts paved the road to efficiency supported by impactful research, game-changing product updates, and hands-on Wrike tips you can put into action right away. As we reflect on this year’s event, one thing is clear: Wrike is not just a platform but a movement toward more innovative, efficient, and collaborative workspaces. Join us in this movement and redefine your organization’s collaborative endeavors with Wrike. Try Wrike for free Here are the top five highlights from this year’s event: 1. Welcome keynote: Driving modern work efficiencies Just in time for 2024 planning, Wrike Interim CEO Thomas Scott shared the latest insights on modern work challenges and the opportunities arising from those challenges. He covered this and more with Product Marketing Manager Molly Mixon, as they kicked off the day with a conversation on Wrike’s forward-looking vision and the role of AI and human resources in the modern workplace. 2. Efficiency keynote: Transformative trends of 2023 Wrike CMO Esther Flammer and President and CRO Brian Nourani highlighted the winning work management strategies that top-tier companies, such as Walmart Canada and Siemens Smart Infrastructure, are harnessing. These customer experiences offered tangible inspiration for teams looking to optimize processes using Wrike. We’re confident these insights and success stories will help you see significant time savings and a productivity surge at both a team and organizational level. 3. Customer-centric discussions: Unveiling impactful journeys A range of customer-focused discussions at Collaborate highlighted the transformative journeys of various organizations using Wrike. Kasey Schmidt, Marketing Technology Lead at Visa Acceptance Solutions, walked attendees through her team’s adoption of Wrike, including the major accomplishment of launching a new Visa brand in a short timeframe by using Wrike for project management. 4. Wrike’s product roadmap: Upcoming features and innovations Our product roadmap session was a highlight of the event, showcasing the upcoming features and innovations coming to the Wrike platform. Key developments include Wrike Datahub, designed to eliminate data silos, Intelligent Resource Management that will drive smart resourcing decisions, Next-Gen Analytics for real-time data visualization, and the AI-driven Wrike copilot for work management. These announcements created quite a buzz, and we’re thrilled to report that the new capabilities will be rolled out over the coming months. 5. Breakout tracks and sessions: A comprehensive understanding of Wrike’s capabilities The breakout sessions provided a deep dive into Wrike’s most impactful features and case studies, offering attendees expertise on features they will now take back to their teams for even greater results. In Workflow Automation: Your Shortcut to Productivity, Alina Kucherenko, Wrike Product Manager for Automation, and Ryan Candela, Wrike Senior Solutions Consultant, offered a comprehensive discussion and demo on Wrike’s automation features — showing off the efficiency users can achieve with only a few clicks. Tomorrow’s training sessions will allow attendees even more hands-on opportunities to deepen their knowledge of Wrike’s features. Join us on the road to efficiency If you missed Collaborate 2023, you can still get in on the efficiency action! All sessions from Collaborate 2023 are now available on demand, so you can catch up when you have time. Watch now Collaborate 2023 marked a significant leap for collaborative work and project management. Are you ready to take the leap into greater efficiency, too? Start your free Wrike trial and help your team level up for efficiency in 2024 and beyond.
Wrike Paves the Way for Efficiency With New Intelligent Solutions for Work
At Wrike’s sixth annual Collaborate event today, we took the opportunity to release our latest suite of updates to our Work Intelligence® solution for the future of work. In conversation with Product Marketing Manager Molly Mixon, our Vice President of Product, Alexey Korotich, shared a selection of the most innovative advancements for the Wrike platform. We’re excited to share these innovations with you, including Wrike’s copilot for work management, datahub, next-gen analytics, and user attributes. These new capabilities will enable teams to do their most impactful and efficient work, giving them better visibility and alignment on workflows and the ability to deliver measurable business outcomes. Let’s hear from Alexey about the incredible product innovations announced at Collaborate today. Question: We have more work than ever and more tools than ever to accomplish that work, but many teams are still struggling to actually work efficiently. Why do you think that is? A: Despite all the tools that we have to manage work and collaborate with our teams, it’s still harder than it should be. We have to juggle between different applications, multiple spreadsheets, and disconnected workflows. Technology consolidation now plays a vital role in reducing noise and distractions employees face in their workspace. We’ve come a long way to make Wrike an intuitive, versatile, and scalable platform that can provide a single source of truth — where different applications, workflows, and data come together. You can experience this with one of the most recent innovations we delivered to the market: Wrike Lightspeed. It’s a whole new user experience coupled with powerful, no-code workflow automation and an infinitely scalable workspace. It’s the platform of choice for companies that are serious about efficiency and are looking to consolidate their tech stack. Question: One of the biggest traits of AI is that it gets smarter the more you use it, which means millions of Wrike users will be able to work smarter than ever because AI is embedded right in the platform. Tell us exactly how our customers will be able to work smarter with Wrike’s intelligence? A: Many of our customers tell us that lots of their data lives in spreadsheets or other databases that are siloed and not connected to the work that is managed in Wrike. This leads to inefficiencies and disconnected workflows. Wrike's datahub is a game-changer. It revolutionizes how you manage the intersection of workflows and data. You can focus on making data-informed decisions instead of copying and pasting information from one system to another. Our datahub allows users to manage and connect data directly to our platform. Additionally, Wrike can interpret that data, and derive insights and intelligence, helping you take action and make better decisions. With Wrike's datahub, there will be no more juggling between projects in Wrike and data in spreadsheets, unlocking many new possibilities for the Wrike platform. The datahub serves as a data repository and allows us to track and connect all kinds of data — such as physical assets, inventory, digital files, client lists, purchase requests, and anything else that you need to do your work. So instead of pulling the information you need from dispersed tools, like spreadsheets, you have it close to your workflow and can make informed decisions without context switching. Question: Imagine a world where you could intelligently match the right people to the right work based on specific requirements. Sounds like a dream, right? A: Not anymore. Our new capability brings this dream to reality: Wrike’s user attributes. Project managers need to ensure they have the right people ready to do work, on time and on budget. This becomes particularly complex when managing large, diverse teams residing in different locations. These companies have a wide range of skills and experience to consider. By leveraging our new user attributes, you can set up and track detailed information about any Wrike user and leverage this data to make better planning and resourcing decisions. With this new capability, our customers can track employee professional skills, languages, locations, organizational relationships, hierarchies, and many other things. You can assign attributes to specific users and leverage Wrike’s resource management tools to find the right people for the right job, no matter how specialized the work might be. You’ll also be able to use skills management and resource management capabilities to understand where you have skill gaps or capacity constraints for talent planning. You can track organizational relationships, hierarchies, and equipment your teams use, and even set up automation. For example, you could @mention someone’s manager to escalate task assignments when that person is on vacation. Question: We’ve all walked into meetings feeling prepared, only to be asked about data points we don’t have at hand. Does Wrike have a way to easily access that information? A: We do now. Today we’re launching Wrike's next-gen analytics, which will dramatically decrease the time to insights across all workflows, teams, and data. Our next-gen analytics features are built to be easy to use and are available for any Wrike user. These features allow you to build customizable dashboards and get the insights you need, truly democratizing data-driven decisions. We built these capabilities based on a deep understanding of what our users are looking to do and incorporated dozens of shortcuts that help you get insights in seconds. Our dashboards are also uniquely designed to be versatile and serve all types of users, from managers, individuals, and all the way to executives across the org. No more Sunday night scramble of trying to get insights and slides together across a bunch of different data sources and spreadsheets. These next-gen analytics provide easy visibility across diverse data points and views from different departments and projects in one place, without all of the blood, sweat, and tears. Another thing you’ll love is how effortlessly the data flows into your dashboards, capturing all the task and project details in real time. As a result, you’ll have a 10,000-foot view of all your projects, whether you’re tracking status, effort, or ROI. Question: Organizations have all this data sitting in their various systems, but it has become harder to make sense of all of it. Can you tell us about Wrike’s vision for solving this problem? A: Yes, we are proud to announce Wrike’s copilot for work management. This new AI assistant will be able to digest massive amounts of data in seconds. It will converse with you in human language, surface insights instantly, and automate what used to be time-consuming and manual. And it will help you make informed decisions in record time. It’s kind of like having a personal assistant or information butler right in your Wrike account! Someone to help you find quick answers to all your burning questions, keep you organized and on track, and help you brainstorm new ideas. The hardest part of any task is overcoming those mental blocks and starting from scratch, so using Wrike’s copilot for work management for those big daunting activities is like getting to leapfrog past the hard stuff so you can put all your brainpower toward making your work exceptional. The latest iteration of Wrike’s copilot for work management, which I’m very excited about, includes AI-powered automation suggestions. One of the most effective ways to enhance efficiency is through automating repetitive work. At Wrike, we’ve been empowering you to achieve this for years using our automation engine. However, here’s the challenge — When everyone is swamped with daily tasks and urgent fire drills, it seems impossible to allocate additional time to process improvements. This is where our automation suggestions become really useful. Our intelligent features support our customers every step of the way. Whether you’re working on a global project or a day-to-day deliverable, you can leverage Wrike’s copilot for work management to surface the insights you need and ultimately make the right decisions. Question: In the current discourse on AI, in addition to all the good it can do, we hear concerns about the quality, accuracy, and implicit biases in AI-generated responses, as well as concerns that AI can potentially replace humans in the future. What’s your viewpoint on all of these concerns? A: I hear the same concerns, and they’re all valid. AI is a truly groundbreaking technology that continues to impact more and more spheres of our personal and work lives. However, Wrike’s AI philosophy is to always leverage it responsibly, and not to replace, but to assist the people behind the controls. AI helps you analyze and connect a significant amount of data and provides critical insights that help you make better decisions. But the decisions themselves are always made by humans. We also go the extra mile to make sure AI doesn’t put our customer’s data at risk. The way our AI infrastructure is built prevents customer data from being used for training third-party AI models. This means you can safely bring together publicly available and internal data with Wrike’s copilot for work management. We understand how important it is for some organizations to have a choice of which AI models to use. That is why the underlying architecture of Wrike’s copilot for work management is going to support custom Large Language Models along with their different hosting methods. And on top of that, we will also enable account admins to control which features employees will be allowed to use. Question: When can Wrike users start using these new innovations? A: Wrike's next-gen analytics are available in Chart view already, and you can currently enable the new dashboard view in Wrike Labs. Automation suggestions will be available this quarter. Wrike's datahub will be available in the first quarter of 2024. Skills management will be available in the first quarter of next year as well, and resource management will be coming later in 2024. Generative AI within Wrike’s copilot for work management can already be enabled in Wrike Labs, with automation suggestions coming online this quarter, and other features coming in 2024. Now that you’ve read all about our latest platform innovations, get more hands-on experience with Wrike. Start a free trial today. If you’re a current Wrike user and you’re looking to dive deeper into how you and your team can leverage these new updates, reach out to your account manager or our support team today. We’ll be updating the Wrike blog regularly with more updates from Collaborate 2023, including insights from our speakers, customer success stories, and more. Try Wrike for free
Introducing Thomas Scott: Wrike CFO Moves to Interim CEO Role
This summer, Wrike CFO Thomas Scott took on the role of interim CEO, as founder and former CEO Andrew Filev stepped into a board advisor role after 17 years as the head of the company. We’re in good hands, though. Thomas has all of the expertise and business acumen to take up the mantle as Wrike’s leader. As Thomas assumes the Interim CEO position, we thought a Q&A would be an appropriate way for our customers, partners, and the general public to get to know his leadership style, his goals for Wrike moving forward, and his thoughts on current tech trends. Q: Why don’t we start with your Wrike journey, how did it all start? A: My Wrike journey started over a year ago; my one-year anniversary was in March of 2023. I had sold my prior business in the middle of 2021, and right as I started to consider my next challenge I had the good fortune to meet Andrew. I had been working as a financial and operating executive for innovative technology businesses for over 17 years, and was looking for the combination of a great product, team, and opportunity to make an impact. Wrike offered this chance and I have never looked back since taking this challenge. Q: What does it mean to be Interim CEO at Wrike? As Interim CEO, my role is to guide Wrike forward on the next chapter of our story. Part of this includes maintaining continuity on the things that brought Wrike to this level of success and part of it includes fostering innovation and change as we adapt to a new economic environment along with our customers.. Q: How is Wrike planning to thrive in a challenging climate? A: As we look to grow our business, it’s important to note that the environment has changed. Our customers are focused on efficiency and productivity and we’re really no exception to that. We’re doing the exact same thing, looking at how we can be more productive as a company and how we can take advantage of this shifting situation in the overall economy, and within IT spending in particular. If you think about the Wrike customer journey of going from teams to department to the overall company, I think some of what’s going on in the industry as a whole is going to help that journey. We just have to be very prescriptive about our strategies, staying focused on winning with our product, winning with our core customers, and ultimately winning with enterprise organizations to take advantage of some of these trends. I’m preparing to discuss some of these strategies at Wrike Collaborate 2023 in November, and we’re welcoming our VP of Product, Alexey Korotich, to the stage to discuss platform innovations that will get all of our customers excited about what’s to come. It’s a thrilling time to be in this industry and to be at Wrike, specifically. Innovation is in our DNA, we’re pioneers in AI for CWM, and you don’t want to miss the news at Collaborate. Q: What is your take on trends like AI? A: AI is both fascinating and concerning at the same time if you think about the number of different use cases where it could be applied and the speed with which it could cause disruption. For me, it is an interesting trend to follow externally in terms of what other companies are doing, but it’s also really interesting what we’re doing with it here at Wrike because there’s an enormous amount of use cases that we can apply both within the product as well as within our different functional areas. AI is going to allow us to create efficiencies in how we best serve our customers and tailor our message to them. Again, tune into Collaborate – we have some incredible announcements to make on this front. Q: What sets Wrike apart from its competitors? A: The scalability of the product is a key differentiator. This product was built for scale and a lot of our competitors were not. Another differentiator is the work that we’ve done over the last year with Wrike Lightspeed that has made the entry-level point for this product really compelling. Teams now have the ability to adopt it earlier on, and that’s transformational. From a use case perspective, our own teams have really increased their usage of Wrike and their ability to free up time by automating workflows. We know from experience that once you’re using Wrike for simple use cases, you start asking, ‘What else can I do with this?’ It opens up other possibilities, it brings in other users, and that gives you an idea of what that customer journey can look like on the outside as you’re watching it develop internally. Q: What does Wrike’s financial future look like? A: We have a great opportunity ahead of us given macroeconomic trends, their impact on business today, and Wrike’s inherent ability to improve efficiency and productivity – which is what every organization is focused on right now. As an STG portfolio company, I’m not able to share financial information; however, Wrike’s executive team is very much focused on understanding the growth rate in our market, where opportunities lie, and how we can invest in products, people, and processes to be able to increase the value of the business. Q: How would you describe Wrike culture? A: Wrike has a culture that drives change. This business has successfully navigated a number of really transformational milestones. From COVID to the Citrix acquisition and, subsequently, the demerger from Citrix, there are a number of big changes that we have been through. The resilience of this culture and the willingness to continue to find ways to innovate is something that I’m proud to be a part of here. Our employees have a lot of grit. They can come into a challenging situation and are able to problem-solve and persevere through it. They are also intellectually curious, as well, and you have to be to work in such a fast-paced space. Q: What makes Wrike a unique place to work? A: We truly are a global company spread out across a number of locations. I think that is a real strength for us and something that we should continue to invest in. Our resilience and ability to change is a key aspect of the culture and that’s something that I want to see us continue to invest in as well. Q: What are the most exciting projects being developed at Wrike? A: There’s an exciting opportunity for us to continue to expand how we use technology within our own business, whether that is to continue to drive more use cases internally with Wrike, or by investing in the tech stack that we use that we’re not fully utilizing today, or even bringing together different data sources. Additionally, we’re looking to more than double Wrike’s business over the next few years. In order to do that, we’ve got to develop the next generation of leaders that will help this business scale and I view that as one of the more important things that I do in my job. Q: What’s the most rewarding part of being Wrike’s Interim CEO? A: By far the most rewarding part of what I do is being able to travel around and talk to customers and our employees. That has been the best thing that I’ve done here. I’ve taken dozens of trips since I’ve been here over the last year, and I very much believe in forming relationships with people across our global footprint. Q: How do you spend your spare time? A: I am probably not the best role model for work-life balance, but I have a 14-year-old daughter so I both watch and coach a fair amount of youth sports and I love doing that. I also enjoy outdoor activities myself, like skiing, hiking, and mountain biking. I try to live as active a life outside the office as I can. Thomas will be delivering a keynote at our sixth annual virtual Collaborate event in November. Make sure to save your spot so you can get even further insights into what’s to come for Wrike. Register for Collaborate
How Wrike Lightspeed Will Cut Out Wasted Time and Save Your Organization’s Bottom Line
Do you ever feel like work is flying at your team at the speed of light? The rate at which teams are expected to complete projects and tasks is higher than ever — and employees as well as employers are feeling that pressure. That’s why we designed Wrike Lightspeed. In this day and age, you need a platform that enables your team to thrive and excel at lightspeed. Wrike Lightspeed is also designed to bring tasks into the light, increasing visibility so every team member has the information they need to complete their best work — and so managers, executives, and stakeholders can quickly understand project progress in a blink. We recently published a study that really shocked us — and as a result, pushed us to design Wrike Lightspeed, the most powerful work management platform on the market. Our study on the Dark Matter of Work underlined just how much employees and organizations are suffering from inefficient processes, the daily juggle of too many windows, apps, and passwords, and a disconnect between individual work and what it means for the organization. What the Dark Matter of Work really means to your organization The Dark Matter of Work is what gets lost in the gaps between systems and solutions that aren't integrated. It’s the time that’s wasted when you have to duplicate work in one app that you’ve already done in another. It’s the resources that could be better used elsewhere, but are instead poured into updating your stakeholders about project progress or sending email after email to a coworker asking for information. The Dark Matter of Work doesn’t just bog down your employees’ productivity; it can crush the soul of your company. Picture this: You’re an employee who has to switch between an average of 14 apps throughout your day. In several platforms, you have to update the same tasks to reflect work you’ve done between fielding email requests for more tasks. When you finally get a chance to get into deep work, you realize the information you need is buried in email threads and Slack messages. You leave work late, exhausted from struggling with systems that just don’t work. And you question what all those disjointed tasks are really doing to move your company forward. At 2 a.m., you wake up with a start, realizing you forgot to update your manager ahead of an important meeting you have first thing tomorrow. The Dark Matter of Work wastes your employees’ time and leaves employees feeling discouraged — even when they’re putting in maximum effort. The cost of letting the Dark Matter of Work continue We also know that the Dark Matter of Work doesn’t just impact your employees’ daily work, their productivity, their sense of purpose, and their career fulfillment — it affects a company’s bottom line. The wasted time from the Dark Matter of Work costs a single employee at a knowledge organization up to $16K per year. Multiply that by the number of employees in your organization, and you’ve got a serious problem — and a major opportunity to make up lost revenue. The Dark Matter of Work leads to delayed and canceled projects, missed deadlines, low productivity, and even employee churn. That costs companies in the knowledge industry millions every year. And that’s where Wrike Lightspeed comes in. How Wrike Lightspeed will help you eliminate the Dark Matter of Work We designed Wrike Lightspeed to help companies eliminate the Dark Matter of Work and recover those lost profits that are slipping through the cracks. Wrike Lightspeed is the platform where your employees can plan, manage, track, and complete all of their daily work. It’s fully configurable to your team’s processes — no more trying to shoehorn your ways of working into a pre-built cookie cutter platform. Instead, we give you the features you need and help you customize them so they fit your team. Wrike Lightspeed helps companies cut out those daily struggles like switching platforms and duplicating work, and enables employees to achieve new levels of productivity. It enables an unprecedented velocity of work — and it brings the work your team does to light with 360-degree visibility. That means managers can see how employees are progressing with tasks — and catch bottlenecks before they delay projects. Teams can emerge from their silos without leaving their desks — Wrike Lightspeed offers cross-tagging, which increases visibility and decreases duplication. Do the work once, tag teams who need to stay in the know, and move on to work that matters. What’s more? Wrike Lightspeed is powerful for a team of five — or for a team of 500. It can scale as you grow without losing any of the collaborative benefits, automation capabilities, integrations with your most-used apps, intuitive work intelligence, or security features. That’s major savings for your company with every team that’s added to Wrike. Are you ready to see for yourself just how Wrike Lightspeed can transform the way you work? Start a trial and begin eliminating the Dark Matter of Work from your workflows today.
Our Favorite Highlights From Collaborate Day Two
In the blink of an eye, Collaborate 2022 is over, and we’re reflecting on a dynamic event jam-packed with insightful keynotes, fascinating roundtable discussions, and engaging executive panels. The most notable announcement was the introduction of Wrike Lightspeed, the next generational release in the world’s most powerful work management platform! Check out our Wrike Lightspeed video to learn more about the fastest way to productivity. We loved having you with us at the event and chatting with you at our virtual booths. Day two proved to be an exciting day, and we’re taking the time to reminisce on our favorite moments. How to scale complex processes We loved hearing Brian Gotti, MarTech Manager, Marketing Operations at Geotab, speak about how to scale complex processes through a single source of truth. Brian showed us how his company uses collaborative work management to empower incredible collaboration, challenges, and accomplishments that occur behind the scenes of Geotab’s impressive fleet management and tracking operations. We recommend you check out this featured customer story, available now on demand! 10 ways to simplify intake and transform your work Sherrie Besecker, Creative Technology Manager at Syneos Health, walked us through 10 ways to simplify intake and transform how teams work. Sherrie took us on a journey of how to use Wrike’s blueprints and request forms to take work to the next level, from basic templates to logic mapping and reporting. If you’re interested in how to employ these game-changing tactics in Wrike for your own team, make sure to watch Sherrie’s session on demand! How Knute Nelson drives marketing efficiency with a DAM Healthcare organization Knute Nelson also joined us for day two and gave an illuminating overview of how they drive more efficiency by integrating Wrike with their DAM solution, Media Valet. Check out this session on demand led by VP of Marketing at Knute Nelson, Samatha Beckman, and Senior Partner Manager at MediaValet, Jonathan Yim. You’ll learn how Knute Nelson combines the best of project management and digital asset management to scale marketing efforts, build strong workflows, and get the right content into teams’ hands. Welcoming you all to Collaborate Our favorite part of Collaborate 2022 was seeing all our attendees engaging with the platform, the sessions, and our virtual booths. You were the true highlight of the event! We can’t wait to bring you to our next work management conference, but in the meantime, you’re welcome to watch Collaborate 2022 back with our on-demand sessions. Whether you were there in real time and want to re-watch something or you couldn’t make the live event, head here for access to Collaborate On-Demand. See you next year!
The Best Moments From Collaborate 2022 Day One
We have finally opened the virtual Collaborate doors to thousands of work management enthusiasts for an exciting first day. We welcomed attendees to our digital conference platform today, where they could join our mainstage sessions, visit virtual booths, hop into breakout sessions, and attend tailored roundtable discussions. While we prepare for day two, we’re taking a quick breather and reflecting on our favorite parts of day one of Collaborate. The Future of Work, Now In his opening keynote, Andrew Filev, Founder and CEO of Wrike, explained how every team and every business can overcome the work complexities of today and tomorrow, accelerate performance, and achieve meaningful work, together. Product Keynote: Introducing the Next Generation of Work Management Alexey Korotich, Vice President of Product at Wrike, previewed the next generational release in the world’s most powerful work management platform. Look forward to more announcements, unique product innovations, live demonstrations, and customer testimonials. Featured Customer Story: How Leaf Home is Driving Business Success Through Great Work Management Krystal Burwell, Director of Project Management at Lead Home, discussed how she successfully harnesses collaborative work management to accelerate digital transformation, facilitate new process development, and elevate visibility of business operations and project impact. Get Big Things Done: Unleash Your Connectional Intelligence Erica Dhawan, Collaboration and Connectional Intelligence Expert, explored how Connectional Intelligence is turning people into super connectors who accelerate innovation, break down silos and foster breakthrough top- and bottom-line impact in the 21st-century digital workplace. The Cost of Work Complexity: Build a Business Case to Improve Work Across Your Org As uncovered in Wrike’s 2022 “The Dark Matter of Work” report, numerous tools have given rise to work complexity that costs time and money. Esther Flammer, Chief Marketing Officer at Wrike, took a deeper dive into the cost and impact of work complexity across teams and departments that can help you prove the value of your work productivity. Don’t forget to meet with a Wrike expert View all of the Collaborate Solution Stations, select the topic that interests you the most, and book a time to meet with us! This one-on-one meeting is the perfect time to discuss features and functionalities of the platform and have your support questions answered. Book a meeting Showcasing something for everyone While we loved the mainstage presentations, it was great to see attendees jump into our breakout sessions and roundtable discussions, each tailored to different industries from marketing and creatives to IT, professional services, and healthcare. We can’t wait to bring you even more exciting content on day two. You don’t want to miss James Clear, Habit Expert and Author, as he walks us through how to get 1% better every day.
4 Takeaways on the Value of Collaborate From Nickelodeon’s Jeff Hartlieb
We talked with Nickelodeon’s Jeff Hartlieb to gather his top four insights on the value of Collaborate, Wrike’s industry-leading work management conference. Read these bite-sized takeaways to get an insider’s perspective on Wrike’s unmissable virtual event.
Up-Level Your Work Management: Wrike Training at Collaborate 2022
Collaborate 2022 is the best place to understand how companies experience greater productivity and find the freedom to focus on their most meaningful work. Through the lens of product experts and team managers from around the world, Collaborate attendees will enjoy an incredible mix of hands-on product sessions and customer-led stories. Join us to learn how teams are rising above work complexities to do their most purposeful work together. At Collaborate 2022, our industry-leading work management conference, we’re dedicating two expert-led, live training sessions to customers and prospects. If you’d like to incorporate work management best practices into your workplace and become a Wrike expert yourself, these sessions are for you. Training at Collaborate 2022 Wrike’s live training sessions will support users in optimizing their work management tools and encouraging company-wide adoption of Wrike. Each live training session will be led by a Wrike team member who’s an expert in work management best practices and the Wrike platform. The sessions include a mixture of lectures, guided activities in your own Wrike workspace, and opportunities to ask questions and learn from your dedicated session host. By joining Collaborate, you’ll have the opportunity to bundle one of Wrike’s standard bronze or silver self-paced certifications with one of the live paid training sessions at an exclusive Collaborate discounted price. Check out our exciting schedule for Collaborate 2022 Live Training below: Thursday, October 27 Project Management Theories and Best Practices in Wrike 9:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. PDT In this training, junior or associate project managers will have the opportunity to learn the basics of work management, followed by hands-on training to manage projects the Wrike way. Wrike for Space Admins: Replicating Your Team's Business Process in Wrike 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. PDT In this training, participants will receive guidance and hands-on best practices for building and managing a Wrike Space. Gain the necessary tools and knowledge to take control of your team's Space, regardless of your role, and encourage team collaboration in Wrike. Seats for our paid live training sessions are limited, so don’t miss out on your chance to become a Wrike expert and champion within your organization. Once registered for Collaborate, Wrike users can purchase their preferred training bundle from the link in their registration confirmation email for a limited time. Register for Collaborate 2022 Atomic Habits to Dark Matter: Collaborate 2022 At Collaborate 2022, you’ll gain insights into Wrike’s product roadmap and hear candid stories about how companies have flipped their collaborative work management strategies to recapture lost productivity. Check out our exciting agenda, featuring an incredible mix of product and thought leadership sessions and customer-led work management stories. Register now for a front-row and virtual seat. Unforgettable keynote sessions from best-selling author James Clear; collaboration expert Erica Dhawan; and Wrike Founder & CEO Andrew Filev; VP of Product Alexey Korotich; and CMO Esther Flammer Exciting breakout sessions covering topics ranging from A.I. and team management to harnessing citizen developers Insightful customer sessions from leading brands, including OSF Healthcare, Pluralsight, and Leaf Home Hands-on Wrike training sessions, from project management basics to becoming a Wrike expert or replicating your team's business process in Wrike’s work management solution Register for Collaborate 2022
Time to Get Creative! 5 Highlights From Wrike at SXSW 2022
The SXSW Conference & Festivals took place in Austin from March 11-20, 2022. It proved to be a fantastic opportunity for digital creatives to come together in person and encounter cutting-edge ideas in innovation, connectivity, and inclusivity. From enjoying Lizzo’s powerful keynote to learning about collaboration and inclusivity in the future of work, Wrike was excited to participate in this seminal event to highlight our contribution to collaboration, creativity, and productivity at work. Here are our top highlights from our time at SXSW 2022. 1. Teams are ready to streamline their digital workspace We were thrilled to welcome attendees to our booth at the Creative Industries Expo at SXSW to show teams how they could minimize tedious admin tasks, streamline operations, and refocus on creativity at work. Our onsite team provided customized demos of the Wrike platform to attendees, including specific use cases for creative and marketing teams. We also enjoyed chatting with attendees about the benefits of streamlining creative workflows with our powerful, built-in management tools and templates. 2. Launching our latest customer success story While in Austin, it seemed fitting to highlight our latest customer success story featuring the professional American Major League Baseball club, the Texas Rangers. What better place to showcase one of our latest Texan customers than at Texas’ most prominent annual event! With 300 employees and 15 different departments, the Texas Rangers realized the urgent need for a unified, digital work solution to establish clear workflow processes. Wrike enabled the Texas Rangers to standardize and organize their workflow intake, simplify time-consuming review and approval processes, and maintain real-time visibility into projects through accessible dashboards and tasks that could be shared across the entire organization. Enjoy their whole story here. We were excited to share this unique customer success story that resonated with locals, sports fans, and creative teams alike. 3. Cementing that Wrike is the perfect fit for marketers and creatives Wrike makes it possible for individuals, teams, and organizations to work with purpose every day, bring any idea to life, and exceed stakeholder and client expectations. At SXSW, this became even clearer when we spoke to marketing, brand, design, agency, and creative professionals. Wrike’s collaborative work management platform allows high-performance marketing teams in any industry to streamline and centralize work, strengthen collaboration, refine processes, and enhance visibility. Wrike can support creative teams with the following use cases: Design and creative workflows Digital and creative asset management Marketing campaign management Marketing operations management Marketing performance insights Formal proofing and approval processes Work intake management 4. Discovering key takeaways on the future of work One of our favorite moments of the event was attending author, speaker, and data journalist Alexandra Samuel’s session: “Remote Inc: How to Thrive at Work Wherever You Are.” There are endless conversations around "work from home" and "remote work," but we learned it’s no longer about figuring out your home office set-up or battling Zoom fatigue. It's now about accommodation and adaptation. Accommodation: If companies truly embrace flexible work, they must accommodate all kinds of working styles. In this competitive workforce, employers can't spend all their resources on perks to lure workers back to the office, as it’s no longer aligned with how everyone prefers to work. Adaptation: Even fully remote employees need socialization and texture in their workdays. Employers need to trust their employees to manage their workloads in a way that makes them successful. Replicating “break room time” and movement like walks between meetings and social lunches is vital to keeping remote employees balanced and focused. 5. Making time for fun At Wrike, we believe in working hard and playing harder. We were thrilled to welcome numerous Wrike customers and fans to our exclusive Happy Hour event, where we enjoyed great food, drinks, and even better company. We also enjoyed engaging conference attendees with a special appearance by portrait artist Napkin Killa. If you were lucky enough to get a napkin portrait at the event, we would love to see it on social media! You can tag us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Teams choose Wrike for outstanding work management Our biggest takeaway from SXSW 2022 is that teams across industries and disciplines are ready for a powerful work management platform to simplify work, streamline processes, enable greater collaboration, and allow more space for innovation and creativity. Discover why over 20,000+ customers in 140 countries choose Wrike by starting a free trial or scheduling a call for a quick demo.