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
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
Wrike Delivered 396% ROI Over Three Years to Boost Efficiency for Organizations
The Total Economic Impact™ of Wrike, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Wrike, demonstrates the benefits of using Wrike, as customers increased profits and eliminated low-value work.
