New Markets Advisors
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BUILD INNOVATION CAPABILITIES

We are experts at building the processes, tools, and teams that make innovation successful and repeatable

Over the years, we have helped dozens of companies, large and small, become more innovative—by setting up and advancing new innovation functions, designing incubators and innovation labs, benchmarking innovativeness, and training thousands of people on the fundamentals of innovation. You can find our thumbprints on innovation programs at many of the world’s most admired companies.
 
Our expertise comes from decades of experience as innovation consultants in addition to constant research in the field. Our recommendations derive from this deep knowledge base, and our approaches reflect both the discipline required to communicate ideas and processes simply, as well as the nuance needed to bring diverse stakeholders on board and adapt initiatives to companies’ specific organizational and strategic environments.  
Download our working paper outlining an 8-step process for creating meaningful innovations and making companies more innovative >>>


supporting innovation functions and incubators

Successful innovation doesn’t rely on flashes of brilliance or random chance. Far from that, in fact: the organizations that are most effective at innovation have invested in building reliable processes, tools, and structures for innovating in a regular and predictable way.
New Markets Advisors helps innovation teams and incubator leaders build consensus on what to do and how to measure success.  We specialize in developing:
  • Clear goals for innovation, linked to resourcing and portfolio plans as well as innovation strategies that direct where efforts should be concentrated
  • Ecosystem elements and activities needed to support innovation (such as training, tools, and mechanisms for collaboration, open innovation, and incubation)
  • Organizational understanding about how the innovation team connects with other departments and groups
  • Processes for creating truly innovative ideas and nurturing them to resist corporate antibodies
  • Governance that balances autonomy with necessary linkages to the company’s core business
  • Resourcing plans to nurture innovation
  • Innovation metrics that are well-rounded and actionable

benchmarking innovativeness

​Innovation does not—and should not—work the same way at every company. Corporate hierarchies and industry regulations often mean that an innovation process at a large organization can’t work the same way as it would in a trendy startup. Uniformity is not the goal.
 
Our reviews of a company’s innovation capabilities include assessing how the company pursues different types of innovation, where the company falls short against qualitative and quantitative benchmarks, and what that might mean in light of strategic imperatives.

innovation training

New Markets Advisors is a leader in training staff in essential innovation methodologies. Our approach is both dynamic and pragmatic: teaching key skills for becoming better at innovation, tying those skills to the methods and processes that teams are already using, and adapting them for the tasks and environments in which teams find themselves.
 
Below is a list of commonly requested topic areas for training:
  • Immersion into the innovation process—from discovery to idea development to implementation
  • Foundational innovation principles
  • Using Jobs to be Done to identify opportunities for innovation
  • Conducting customer research
  • Expert brainstorming and idea generation
  • How to prioritize ideas
  • Risk identification
  • Conducting rapid business experiments
  • Pitching, storytelling, and idea communication
  • Building a culture of innovation

how we can help

Our approach for designing and building support for innovation programs

To build broad innovation capabilities in a company, we first help clients to establish the strategic context: what sorts of innovations are most critical to pursue, and what is off the table? We then audit a company’s innovation capabilities, primarily through private interviews with a range of stakeholders, but also at times through wider internal surveys and cultural diagnostics. We use this perspective to co-design a program with our clients that might encompass elements such as training, tools, collaboration mechanisms, and process development. Our work culminates in a consensus-building workshop, where program design elements are detailed and connected to existing business processes. 

Download our book chapter “Enabling the Corporation,” which describes how to create organizational competencies that spur repeatable innovation >>> 
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Our approach to innovation training

From half-day workshops on Jobs to be Done to multi-month immersion programs, from in-person events to engaging virtual courses, our training is tailored for each client. We specialize in grounding organizations in a common methodology for generating, assessing, and commercializing innovations, while also building expertise and confidence in using these approaches throughout the organization.
Our most popular training is an Action Learning Program, where participants build skills by working on real innovation projects over approximately 3-4 months. We break down the mystery of innovation into discrete steps, which we demonstrate live and which participants practice between workshops. Participants learn by doing—conducting customer research, for instance, or setting up small-scale business experiments. Throughout the program, we hold bi-weekly coaching sessions to address specific questions. This approach enables teams to have immediate impact on actual projects, meaning that the learning persists long after our programs conclude.
​
Download a case study on a training program we executed for the leading IT firm, Cognizant >>>
We evaluated a handful of [innovation consultants]. Our choice of New Markets has turned out to be excellent. Their expertise in the concepts and their practice along with their thoughtful mentoring has helped in applying this new skill in our day-to-day work. This has given us a new perspective and ability to spot opportunities” – Bhaskar Venkatasubramanian, Innovation Program Manager, Cognizant Technology Solutions

Our perspective on innovation

what we know to be true about innovation

  • Innovation is a means to an end. It has to solve for something. Innovation needs to be goal-oriented, not just “innovation for the sake of innovation”
  • You don’t have to look like Silicon Valley in order to be innovative. There are many innovation archetypes. The right model for transitioning innovative ideas into innovative products and scaling the output depends on the company’s strategic objectives, internal culture, structure, and environment
  • Culture is a lagging factor, not a leading factor. While culture can be a major impediment to innovation, it will not fundamentally change without simultaneous efforts to alter management systems. Clear innovation mandates and processes are critical for changing mindsets and creating a culture of innovation

Common pitfalls for innovation

Over the years, we have witnessed many ways that organizations can struggle with innovation. Four of the most common pitfalls include:
  • Attempts at innovation haven’t yielded any impact. It’s all buzz and no results—ideas have nowhere to go and get swallowed up in the corporate ether where they are never seen again. For the few that are acted upon, the results tend to be too small or too close to home to drive meaningful change for the organization, or they are too divorced from the way the organization runs today that they don’t get used in the main business units
  • No one has time to innovate. People hardly have enough time to achieve short-term goals within normal business hours; how will they possibly have time to dedicate to speculative new ideas that may or may not go anywhere?
  • No one feels that there is a reason to innovate. There are plenty of other priorities demanding attention; surely someone else will take care of innovation
  • People don’t know what to do to be more innovative. There is a lot of hype around innovation but employees don’t know how any of it specifically impacts their jobs or what they are supposed to do about it

​Many of these issues are addressable through establishing clear rules of the road—transparency around how the effort will be governed and how it will relate to the rest of the organization. By laying the appropriate groundwork and generating buy-in from the start, you can vastly improve the odds of success down the road.

CASE STUDY: FOSTERING INNOVATIVENESS AT A NON-PROFIT

Challenge: A public health non-profit wanted to foster more organic growth through new innovative initiatives. The organization had a long and proud history of launching new services, but felt that in recent years, opportunities for new services were being abandoned too early by overly conservative stakeholders or persisted with far too late. This had led to a culture that many employees would hesitate to call innovative. How could they reinvigorate that spirit of innovation, and make innovation repeatable into the future?
 
How New Markets Advisors helped: What the non-profit needed was a structured process for carrying out innovation projects—a clear understanding of what was expected, what activities were encouraged, and how people could cultivate ideas efficiently.
 
To develop this, New Markets Advisors interviewed internal stakeholders to learn about what hinders and bolsters innovation at the organization. After assessing the current state of innovation and referencing our extensive library of case studies, we designed an innovation program that made clear what kinds of innovations were in and out of scope; how new ideas would be collected, assessed, and implemented; and how innovation would be resourced, governed, and measured. New Markets Advisors introduced this process in a series of workshops and meetings to ensure buy-in.  ​

Learn more from our client impact story

New Markets Advisors Boehringer Ingelheim
Building Innovation Capabilities – Boehringer Ingelheim’s Business Model and Healthcare Innovation
Learn More
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New Markets Advisors: Empowering Companies to COMPETE DIFFERENTLY ​© Copyright 2021. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use. PRIVACY POLICY.
  • About
    • Our Distinct Model
    • Team
    • Join Us
  • Services
    • Develop Growth Strategies
    • Uncover Jobs to be Done
    • Build Innovation Capabilities
  • Industries
    • Arts and Culture
    • Consumer Goods
    • Financial Services
    • Healthcare
    • Social Innovation
    • Technology
  • Past Work
    • Success Stories
    • Recent Clients
    • Testimonials
  • Our Thinking
    • Leading through the Coronavirus Crisis
    • Books
    • Working Papers
    • Articles
    • Blog
    • Speaking Engagements
  • Contact