An innovation consultancy is worth bringing in when a team needs help deciding what to back, and the ideas are only part of that. The most useful thing it leaves behind is a set of choices the team can defend and carry forward: where to grow, which ideas deserve investment and what each would need to succeed.
Most teams have more ideas than they can develop. What they often lack is a shared view of which ones to take forward, and the evidence to bring the rest of the business with them.
Ambition is common, and readiness is rare
In BCG’s 2024 innovation research, “a record 83% of senior executives rank innovation among their organizations’ top three priorities.” By BCG’s measure, “just 3% of companies in 2024 qualify as ‘innovation ready’.” The survey covered more than 1,000 senior innovation executives worldwide.
The distance between those two numbers lies in the choices between an idea and a launch: which ideas to fund, how far to develop each one, and what evidence would justify the next step. Those are the choices an outside team can help with most.
Ideas built for the decision they will face
A pet food company’s key specialty retailer was holding an innovation review, and the company wanted new directions for two of its brands to bring to it. We built on its earlier work and wrote concepts for both brands with the retailer’s questions in mind, each with its product path and back-of-pack story.
The company presented all seven concepts at its key retailer’s innovation review, and two further engagements followed. The work is described in Preparing two pet food brands for a retailer review.
The concepts were written for the moment they had to survive, which is what made them usable. An idea developed with its next decision in view arrives with the answers that decision will ask for.
What the work should leave behind
The test of an innovation engagement is what your team can decide when it ends. Opportunity areas with briefs your team can develop, concepts taken far enough to test, and a view of which to back and in what order are each a decision in a form a business can act on.
That is how our innovation consulting is organized: growth opportunities, trends and foresight, product and technology innovation, concept development, and innovation strategy and pipelines, each worked through with the people who’d buy.