Wrike Paves the Way for Efficiency With New Intelligent Solutions for Work

November 8, 2023 - 10 min read

Emily Westbrooks

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

Emily Westbrooks

Emily Westbrooks is a Content Marketing Manager at Wrike. She brings over a decade of experience as a freelance journalist, editor, blogger, and author to the Wrike blog, where she writes about the latest trends in work management, what’s on the horizon for the future of work, and how work and life intersect in meaningful ways. Emily joined Wrike in 2020 at our Dublin office, and relocated to Houston, Texas, in 2022 with her husband and kids, Maya, Noah, Angelina, and Laylabelle. After spending over a decade in rainy Ireland, she enjoys being outside in the sunshine with her family as much as possible — hiking, running, walking, and swimming.

#Wrike News #Wrike events #Wrike Features

News 7 min read

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

News 7 min read

Get to Know Brian Nourani: New Wrike President and Chief Revenue Officer

Earlier this year, Wrike caught a boomerang. No, not the wooden kind, the type where a much-loved employee comes back after taking another role. Brian Nourani previously served as Senior Vice President, Global Sales at Wrike where he grew the business in North America, EMEA, and APAC. This included building our global enterprise business from its inception and participating in two successful exits in 2021 and 2022. Recently, Brian rejoined Wrike as our President and Chief Revenue Officer, and we’re excited to have him back. Brian has over 13 years of senior sales leadership experience providing strategic and operational guidance for revenue generation. In addition to his time as CRO at Khoros, Brian served as VP of Sales at Tealium and held regional sales roles at Oracle. He returns with a deep understanding of the Wrike business and the enterprise selling motion, both in the areas of expansion and customer acquisition. We knew a Q&A would be the perfect informal format to help our customers and the general public get to know Brian and learn about his experience, his goals, and what makes him tick. Q: Let’s hear why you’re here! A: I’m thrilled to be back at Wrike at a time when the company is looking to expand its business to more verticals. I couldn’t pass up the chance to join a high-energy team in a competitive space and help drive Wrike’s go-to-market strategy and meet the growing market demand for work management software. We’re going to make this an incredibly successful next chapter for the organization and our customers. Q: Tell us about three critical career moves you’ve made. A: Making the move from fintech to tech, which gave me the opportunity to join a great company like Oracle, helping them open their new hub in Los Angeles. I had the opportunity to work with several executives and learn from highly talented individuals through my time at Oracle, specifically seeing their transformation from on-premise to cloud. Next would be my career change, moving to Wrike in 2019 after the Vista Equity Partners acquisition, building the global enterprise business, partnering with countless Fortune 500 customers and seeing two successful exits. Third, would be re-entering Wrike in 2023 as President and CRO. Q: What brought you back to Wrike? A: The new ownership through Symphony Technology Group, the vision, and new leadership through Tom Scott were all very exciting to me. Coming back to Wrike gives me the opportunity to work with so many great people, including customers I built relationships with in the past. I’m excited to take the reins leading our go-to-market organization and influence real change across the business. And I would be remiss not to say, my fellow Wrikers and the culture of innovation and camaraderie at Wrike played a big part in my return. Previously, I had the opportunity to work in the San Diego office with so many great people. Then COVID hit, and we transitioned to remote work and worked through so many challenges. It brought all of us closer together and helped build strong, lasting relationships. I also enjoy visiting Wrikers in other offices. We had a company kickoff in 2020 right before the pandemic, and I got to meet our international teams in Galway, Ireland, and then our AMS employees in San Diego. That event was a blast, and something I will always remember. Q: As Wrike’s new CRO, what are you most excited about? A: The demand has never been greater for a versatile, collaborative work management platform like ours. Wrike will continue to accelerate innovation that’s focused on solving dynamic workplace challenges and meeting the needs of the modern workforce. I am excited to work closely with Symphony Technology Group, my fellow ELT members, and the full team at Wrike to continue to deliver value to our customers and employees globally. Q: What are some of the most impactful changes you’ve made since returning to Wrike? A: Building out a new “pod” structure gives our customer-facing teams the ability to work more collaboratively and serve our customers in a more efficient way. We’re already developing and implementing company-specific sales methodologies, territory and team structures, and new quotas and commission plans, as well as more sophisticated pipeline management and reporting. All of these changes are designed to improve the customer experience. Q: What are areas for potential growth for Wrike? A: I would like to see Wrike continue to lead the way in the collaborative work management space as the most innovative solution in the market — standing at the forefront of artificial intelligence. I believe AI empowers teams to streamline their processes, eliminating time-consuming manual tasks. This enables team members to shift their focus on to more strategic and creative aspects of their work, promoting higher levels of engagement. As a company, we have a great opportunity to be a leader in our space, actively helping our customers streamline work processes for maximum efficiency, empowering teams across all departments to collaborate, manage projects, drive strategic initiatives, and achieve goals. A few rapid-fire favorites: Favorite book? Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t, by Jim Collins. I love this book because you will learn what it takes to be a top leader, why building the right team is so critical, and why “stop doing” is as important as what you should do. Favorite quote? “Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves — and by which they are willing to be judged.” Frederick W Smith, CEO of Fedex Favorite country? England London, England is so culturally rich and such a diverse city, with centuries of history, not to mention amazing tea! There is so much to see and do in London, from the markets, to the food and architecture — it’s impossible not to love! Favorite Wrike feature? Request forms and automation. Brian will be delivering a keynote at our sixth annual virtual Collaborate event in November. He’ll be sharing impactful customer success stories you won’t want to miss. Save your spot today! Register for Collaborate

News 3 min read

The Timeline Goes Live

We have developed a Timeline, which is mostly known as a Gantt Chart. Now you can: - have the big picture of parallel projects, - track the work load of your team members, and - create elegantly designed outlines of plans. All these tasks are a huge challenge when using other online project management and collaboration tools, aren’t they? Here is a short demo for you. Some technical details. The red flag marks the due date, and the floating bar chart represents the task duration. So you can easily drag a bar and thus change the start date of a task. To change the task duration, you only need to pull the bar’s borders. The red flag - the due date – keeps you from accidentally overstepping the deadline and doesn’t allow the bar chart to move outside of it.

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Wrike Paves the Way for Efficiency With New Intelligent Solutions for Work

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?

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?

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?

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?

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?

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?

Question: When can Wrike users start using these new innovations?

Emily Westbrooks

Related articles

Introducing Thomas Scott: Wrike CFO Moves to Interim CEO Role

Get to Know Brian Nourani: New Wrike President and Chief Revenue Officer

The Timeline Goes Live

Wrike Paves the Way for Efficiency With New Intelligent Solutions for Work

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?

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?

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?

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?

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?

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?

Question: When can Wrike users start using these new innovations?

Emily Westbrooks

Related articles

Introducing Thomas Scott: Wrike CFO Moves to Interim CEO Role

Get to Know Brian Nourani: New Wrike President and Chief Revenue Officer

The Timeline Goes Live

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