Setting Industry Benchmarks Through Client Collaboration
Innovation
September 28, 2021
Our Clients Make an Impact
Client needs are ever-changing, which should be reflected in the evolution of their IP solution. Over the years, Anaqua has made it a priority to engage with customers and harness their valuable feedback to help create the market leading IPMS, as recognized by industry analyst Hyperion Research. With client-led software development, we partner closely with our clients to develop a long-term strategic roadmap where we identify opportunities and gaps (such as functional capabilities), and then determine what elements Anaqua should build, buy, or partner that will best support our platform, AQX®, and most importantly the needs of our clients. The key reason why clients select Anaqua and invest time in Anaqua’s client community is because they know it will be a journey we embark on together to reach client success.
“Anaqua is taking us into the next generation of IP management with new levels of collaboration and productivity.” – Heidi Martinez, Chief IP Counsel and Associate General Counsel, Xerox Corporation
Founded by IP Practitioners for IP Practitioners
Anaqua’s customer-centric approach is a critical part of our DNA. Sixteen years ago, Anaqua was founded by IP executives from British American Tobacco and Ford who wrote what became the original specification for the ANAQUA® platform. They defined a new class of enterprise software and set the stage for a company culture that empowers its clients with direct influence on product development.
Today, we continue to work closely together to make sure our roadmap aligns with clients’ key requirements through client Working Groups, surveys, and our Anaqua client facing teams, who work directly with clients to support their short and long-term business goals. Our vision continues to be delivering software that enhances the way our clients manage IP, through solutions that help make their work easier and simpler.
Why? In addition to our goal of bringing the most value to our clients, we also understand the long-term investment—timewise and contractually—behind choosing and/or switching an IP management provider. It should be natural for a software provider and client to want mutual success in the relationship. If this is not the case for you, here are 5 other factors to consider when evaluating your IP management provider.
Company Culture That Empowers Clients - The Anaqua Experience
The Anaqua difference–what makes our client-led software development unique–is that our customers can be confident they will see their input reflected within our solutions and steady cadence of releases. We partner closely with our clients in a structured manner through client committees and working groups. In November 2020, Hyperion Research awarded Anaqua the Highly Innovative designation for its Customer Driven Roadmap and Persona Driven User Interface.
It’s true, our clients are stewards of Anaqua’s strategic product development, helping to inform our long-term investments, determine our product roadmap priorities, and validate our highest-impact features and functions.
Client groups involved in Anaqua’s product development approach include: an Executive Council which defines Anaqua’s 3- to 5-year product strategy, a Steering Group which outlines the roadmap for the next 12 months and Working Groups which comprise of clients who focus on specific IP product topics to develop requirements, validate solutions, and define best practices. Our client Working Groups alone span over 60 different companies and include more than 100 executives and senior IP attorneys working closely with our leadership to bring their vision to life. Simply put, if it is not in our clients’ best interest, then it is not in our product roadmap.
“One key benefit of Anaqua is the Users Group which has been formed. Talking to top-class IP owners about the system at User Group meetings and also the processes and procedures each company uses to manage its Intellectual Property rights is tantamount to bench-marking with the best.” –Toe Su Aung, Former Head of IP, British American Tobacco
The Journey Forward, Together
We view our growth alongside our customers’ growth. So, as we continue to build our client community and listen to their needs, we focus on increasing our investment in R&D to make these ideas actionable.
As mentioned earlier, Anaqua understands that clients’ needs are ever-changing, and so is our solution. Over the years, we’ve made investing in product development a top strategic focus. This tradition has continued with the latest release of our 16 year-strong flagship software platform, AQX. We continually balance strengthening the foundational underpinnings of IP Operations with the strategic needs IP departments and their business partners need. This balancing effort directly reflects the input of our client community and ultimately, our determination to make our clients’ day better. Our latest release, AQX 10.5, includes many long-term foundational features which we worked with our clients to build. Below are some of the benefits:
Experience Efficiency: With our recent bulk upload enhancements our clients can experience increased speed and accuracy when uploading large sets of data into AQX, more flexibility within templates to simplify the formatting of the data, and improved error handling to allow errors within the data set to be found and fixed faster.
Experience Connectivity: We strive to make your platform experience as seamless as possible.
- Clients now have the ability to integrate with a Document Management System (DMS) through Connectivity (formerly SeeUnity)’s Echo product, which securely connects and synchronizes data from AQX to a clients’ DMS and allows documents to be stored in a central location.
- We’ve also enhanced our integration with Anaqua Services Trademark Renewals Services for clients to easily understand when instructions are due from the AQX Home page, quickly send instructions on renewals with daily automatic updates from AQX and gain more visibility into the status of each renewal with additional due date fields.
Experience Personalization through Localization: As we continue to grow globally, it is important to us that we keep localization in mind to ensure our clients geographic requirements are met from a product-perspective. For example, we now offer an integration with PatentSQUARE to allow our clients in Japan to have one-click access to a local patent search and analytics service and to save time switching between two systems to view patent information.
Looking Ahead
At Anaqua, our customers have and always will continue to be our number one priority. Our customer-centric approach defines Anaqua’s roadmap and we will continue to build on this successful model – through organic growth, client-led software development, and strategic M&A – to keep delivering the dedicated staff, solutions, and most importantly stability customers need.
Our clients and collaborating with them compels us to provide the highest quality IP software and consulting services available. We remain focused and are working with clients now to define requirements and product strategy for the next 18 months, which will be revealed in our upcoming blog post on AQX. Stay tuned to find about our upcoming advancements to better serve clients and deliver an even more integrated experience among our software, analytics, and services.
