Innovation and Business Planning Consultants Based in Atlanta and Serving the World

Over the past 20 years there has been an increasing interest in the topic of innovation, and virtually every business, organization, and country espouses the virtues of innovation. However, desiring innovation is like wanting good government—everyone yearns for it, but how does one actually put in place a government that properly serves it citizens?

• While the benefits of innovation are manifold, to fully benefit from it the following needs to addressed:
• How to get innovation started
• How to create an innovative culture
• Developing a comprehensive innovation strategy
• How to sustain an organization’s innovation efforts
• What to do to avoid being disrupted by outside innovations
• How to get employees truly engaged in innovation
• Tools to use to facilitate and speed innovation
• How to properly encourage and reward innovation

During the past 17 years, as innovation experts, we have shown people how to transform their organizations through innovation. This includes working with organizations to create truly innovative environments, and training their employees how to effectively innovate. We have found that these are areas in which virtually all organizations wrestle and want to improve.

Our Solutions to the Dilemma of Innovation

This has resulted in the development of our revolutionary, comprehensive 21st Century FastTrak Innovation Program ™ (delivered through our subsidiary, Corporate Foundry, Inc.) and our Innovation Academy ™. They both show how to apply game changing innovation to an organization. We do what no one else does – show companies how to weave innovation into the very fabric of their entire organization!

We work with both larger and smaller companies, including various Fortune 1000 companies.

Additionally, to make innovation a thriving reality within organizations, we developed our cutting edge, Brite Idea Lab and iLab, innovation management software that connect people with Ideas to Businesses and Organizations looking for ideas. It is essentially Match.com for people with ideas and those looking for ideas.

Read more about innovation…

Various thought leaders say we have moved from the Information Age to the Innovation Age, and companies that innovate faster than their competition will be the future winners.

However, a downside of emerging innovation is disruption, which has become a major force in the business marketplace. As a by-product of game-changing innovations, disruption results in displacing market-leading firms or totally unbalancing established markets, products, or alliances.

You may be thinking, “Disruption won’t affect me. It only affects big companies, so it won’t significantly disrupt my small company or organization.” But that is not correct. Disruption not only affects large industries; it impacts smaller and mid-sized companies as well.

Take a minute and consider your marketplace, then write down disruptions that are currently affecting your company. You also may want to do some research on emerging innovations that could affect your operations in the future.

In light of the above, to stay competitive the objective for an organization is to create an innovation environment in which ideas germinate, grow to maturity and then yield a bountiful harvest.

What is Innovation?

When people think of innovation, primarily new products and services come to mind. However, in reality there are 9 different types of innovation:

• New products and services — Using innovation to develop new products and services.
• Cost reductions and productivity gains — Applying innovation to lower operating expenses or to become more efficient.
• Customer experience improvements — Separate from new products and services is coming up with ideas to improve one’s customers’ overall experience in dealing with an organization.
• Employee satisfaction and engagement increases — Using innovative thinking regarding how personnel are treated to enable a company and its personnel to work as partners.
• Supply chain and vendor interaction enhancements — Working with suppliers and vendors to explore joint development of innovative initiatives so they operate in concert.
• Market reorientations — Applying an existing product or service to new markets.
• Business organization restructurings — Using innovative thinking to establish new ways to organize and operate a company to provide competitive advantages.
• Environmental impact advances — Applying innovation to environmental issues.
• Societal enrichments — Using innovation to improve a society.

We show organizations how to innovate in all of the above applicable areas.

Opportunities Abound

A number of experts predict the worldwide middle class will increase from 1.8 billion to 4.9 billion people by the year 2030. This increase will mainly occur in Asia and India, however significant middle-class growth will also take place in Central and South America, the southern fringes of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. This will result in business opportunities exploding, thus enabling companies to sell products worldwide.

Why does this matter? It signifies that there will be consumers everywhere in the world, not just in one’s current country. Business opportunities will explode. This explosion in the middle class—and development of the transportation and related systems necessary to get goods to them—will enable companies to sell products and services worldwide.

An Innovation “Ecosystem”

To get across the chasm of disruption and move from the area of innovation threats to the land of innovation opportunities, a comprehensive innovation plan is needed —the creation of an entire innovation “ecosystem.” Additionally, an organic, natural approach to innovation needs to be utilized because new ideas and innovation should be the by-product of a company’s and their employee’s normal daily operation.

Our FastTrak Innovation Program ™ contains four basic building blocks that enable an organization to Ignite, Inexhaustible, Intentional Innovation by using a comprehensive approach to develop a truly innovative environment which includes training employees how to effectively innovate.

These four building blocks and the 10 components they encompass form a framework that enables a company to gain perspective and make sense of the vast number of elements that make up the world of innovation. This is crucial because without an overall structure with which to interpret the many facets of innovation and how they all fit together, an organization can be perplexed with innovation’s complexity and may be unable to seize the opportunities being presented to them.

Using all or any of our FastTrak Innovation Program ™, Innovation Academy ™, and Brite Idea Lab and iLab, we work companies to address the above issues to provide them with the benefits that flow from creating a truly innovative environment.