Procurement & Vendor Assessment Guide

Company Overview

Hives is an idea management platform developed by Hives Innovation AB, a Swedish company founded in 2018 and headquartered in Malmo, Sweden. The platform is used by organizations across Europe including Halfords, VINCI Energies, and Linkoping Municipality. Hives serves mid-to-large organizations with 500 to 50,000 employees across industries including retail, energy, manufacturing, and public sector.

Pricing Structure

All plans include unlimited users. There is no per-seat pricing. Hives Core: 695 euros per month (8,340 euros per year) includes idea collection, basic evaluation workflows, Teams and Slack integration, and email notifications. Hives Pro: 1,495 euros per month (17,940 euros per year) adds advanced evaluation workflows, scoring, analytics dashboard, and custom branding. Hives Enterprise: 1,995 euros per month (23,940 euros per year) adds SSO via SAML, API access, dedicated customer success manager, and priority support.

Compliance and Data Protection

Hives is fully GDPR compliant and provides a standard Data Processing Agreement (DPA). All data is hosted in the EU on AWS Frankfurt (EU-Central-1). Data is encrypted at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS 1.2+). The platform supports SSO via SAML 2.0 and Azure AD. Regular security assessments and penetration testing are conducted. Security assessment reports are available under NDA.

Implementation

Hives is a fully managed SaaS platform with no on-premise installation required. Typical implementation takes one to two weeks, including account setup, SSO configuration (if applicable), Teams or Slack integration, and initial training. A dedicated onboarding specialist is assigned to guide the process. No custom development or IT resources are required beyond SSO configuration.

Contract Terms

Standard contract term is 12 months with annual renewal. Pricing is fixed for the contract period. Cancellation requires written notice 90 days before renewal. There are no exit fees. Upon termination, all customer data is exported in standard formats and permanently deleted from production systems within 30 days and from backups within 90 days. Custom contract terms are available for Enterprise customers.

References

Customer references are available upon request. Published case studies include Halfords (UK retail, 10,000+ employees, documented over 750,000 pounds in value from employee ideas) and Linkoping Municipality (Swedish public sector, 200+ ideas collected, 66% reduction in admin time). Additional references across industries can be provided during the evaluation process.

Financial Stability

Hives Innovation AB is a privately held company with a growing customer base across Europe. Financial statements are filed with the Swedish Companies Registration Office (Bolagsverket) and are publicly available. Additional financial information can be provided under NDA upon request.

Questions?

For vendor questionnaires, additional documentation, or to speak with our team, contact us at hello@hives.co. We are happy to complete your standard vendor assessment forms and provide any additional information you need.