Large Companies

Organizations with over $1 billion in revenue

Bigger Ideas. Larger companies tend to be looking for bigger ideas. Ideas that can impact their total sales. We invest more in research, insights, and technology scouting upfront. We spend more time inventing to have an abundance of ideas and possibilities to explore before vetting opportunities for the biggest impacts.
The project will stop because they are not big enough not because they don’t have an ROI or require too much time or investment.
Short-term goal. Objectives are usually big wins in short time periods. Willing to invest in outside help that drives success rather than starting with building internal culture and capabilities. 

New Markets.  More interested in an idea that creates a new industry or category rather than disrupts their current industry. This is because they are typically already one of the leaders in their current market and don’t want to cannibalize current sales. 

Less alignment and more silos. Larger companies can have more complicated internal structures that we have to navigate. This means more planning meetings upfronts with a strong emphasis on objectives and alignment. Ideally we breakdown silos, but more often large companies are less likely to change their entire innovation system, but are willing to temporarily work around it to accelerate success 

Midsize Companies

$10 million to $1 billion Organizations

Market Competition. When partnering with midsize companies the objective is often to leverage innovation as a way to compete against other companies of similar size or overtake market share from a larger company in their space. This results in a large number of innovations for new solutions that are incrementally better than an existing solution. Our role is to capture all those incremental ideas, but also push for bigger, more disruptive ideas that they would not have created on their own.  For incremental innovations, we test against established industry offerings to validate ideas for development.  

Long-term vision.  Accelerating one idea is great but midsize company leaders are more interested in a full pipeline of ideas that sustain their organization long-term. We focus more on improvements in their innovation systems that drive success rather than individual ideas or projects. We also improve strategic alignment so innovation projects support both long-term strategy and short-term objectives. 

Market Disruption. While there is often more focus on incremental innovation with mid-size companies, the ones who want to see the most growth are willing to disrupt their industry with more radical innovation. They have less fear about the cannibalization of current revenue streams and believe they will financially benefit from higher margins associated with being first to market and leading their industry. However, they can lack confidence in their ability to innovate and rely on our expertise and systems for commercializing innovations that have high risk and don’t align with their current development processes. 

Education and Collaboration. Smaller companies have fewer resources and a more do-it-yourself attitude. Success with innovation will require either more collaboration with experts or educating their team with the skills they need to innovate. We have flexibility in our approach to match what approach has the best odds of success for each company. 

Regulated Industries

Utilities,  Alcohol, Financial Institutions

Utilities. Innovation in the utility industry is an ongoing and ever-evolving process, with new challenges and opportunities arising as technology and customer needs evolve. It’s important for utility companies to continuously monitor and adapt to market changes and technological advancements to stay competitive and innovative. 

Drugs and Alcohol. The development and approval of drugs and alcohol products is heavily regulated by various government agencies, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). These regulations are in place to ensure the safety and efficacy of drugs and alcohol products, but they can also make the innovation process more difficult and time-consuming. Overall regulations must be accounted for in our constraints and development time. If there are pricing regulations, then our profitability and business model options are effected as well. 

Financial Institutions. Financial companies must comply with a wide range of regulations and oversight, including those from agencies such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Reserve. This can be a significant burden for companies, particularly when it comes to developing and implementing new products and services. There are also regulations for cybersecurity, capital requirements, consumer protection, and privacy that we are happy to adhere to while accelerating innovation within the organization. 

Non-Profits

Large National or Global Organizations

Mission Focused. When partnering with a non-profit to accelerate innovation, success is measured by the extent we achieve the organization’s mission. There are still financial components as some innovations will aim to drive more donations, fundraising, grants etc. that help the cause. 

Progress & Improvement Focused. There is rarely a close competitor that we are trying to out-innovate or gain a competitive advance over.  Without a direct competitor, we tend to benchmark success over their own past performance and seek to see significant improvements in performance versus the past. 

More Constraints. Legally there are constants to how non-profits can raise money and spend money that are accounted for during ideation and development. All organizations have constraints, but non-profits tend to have more rules and regulations that make change and innovation more challenging. These constraints to not prohibit innovation, especially when we make them visible and have alignment on what we can and cannot do.  

More Stakeholders. Stakeholders include people who benefit from their work or contribute to the work such as beneficiaries, donors, and volunteers. Overall spending that is not directly impacting the mission such as investments in innovation can be scrutinized more by some stakeholders. We work with non-profits to develop clear financial forecasts of ROI and project value for every project.

Public Sector

Local to National Government Organizations

Impact Focused. While working with public sector organizations our objectives are more focused on improving the impacts they are making on society or achieving policy goals. The organization can still financially benefit from innovation, but success comes from driving the mission further, not profit margins.

Risk Adverse. The public sector tends to have less tolerance for any negative consequences.
Where some companies embrace the mindset of 2 steps back, to leap forward, the public sector looks more like baby steps. Smaller incremental innovations that add up over time are key to our success. Managing a pipeline of innovative ideas with clear metrics for risk and impact. 

More Stakeholders. The innovation projects have to please more people and more groups in order to gain support and be successful. When starting innovation projects we communicate benefits to all stakeholders (Elected officials, taxpayers, interest groups, etc.). We don’t have to win or please everyone all the time, but we need to be aware of which stakeholders will support and advocate for the innovation and which can oppose or block it.

University Partners

Accredited Educational Institutions

Expert Instructors. We train your professors, instructors, and faculty who then educate students on campus or online. 

Cycles to Mastery System. We leverage our patented Cycles to Mastery approach to educate all students through videos, lab assignments, and application work.