Our Philosophy

Business leaders always look to make better decisions on defining and driving an innovation strategy to support their growth strategy. This goes beyond the commonly believed hurdles of identifying the big idea and a leader to deliver on it. This is because the approach to innovation is much more complex than the process itself. It includes other factors such as culture, people, environment, and a long term thinking which is in the DNA of an innovative company, supported by the right reward system.

To overcome these challenges some companies hire outsiders to spice up the insider/outsider mix. Outsiders provide a perspective which challenges existing assumptions, values, and decision biases. These outsiders can be hired at both the operational and the management level but firms focused on Innovation Strategy Consulting can also be engaged on a temporary assignment basis.

The Valen Group can help be the outside strategic advisor to help companies define their innovation strategy to better compete and grow in the domestic and global marketplace. As an Innovation Strategy Consulting firm, we have provided fact-based recommendations for over 16 years to top global company executives. By working in a highly trusted, transparent and effective way, we see strategy consulting as a critical resource for top leadership and their executives to:

• Offer best practices in innovation strategy management and insight into the practice of strategy
• Provide an outside, unbiased perspective
• Uncover blind spots or other strategic considerations to identify core strategic issues
• Reframe problems to be more actionable to solve for teams
• Break ties and improve decision-making discipline; provide sound logic to build conclusions

As a strategy consulting firm, our initial conversations with clients are to really frame the problem by sorting out the type of innovation strategy problem they are facing, and collect the facts to resolve it. We work with some of the largest global consumer branded companies. Based on our global experience and expertise in global innovation strategy and product development, we have the capability to identify a number of factors that are key to drive and maximize the global potential of existing and new product services and business models. Among them:

• Superior consumer understanding. It is critical to identify the critical needs for target categories among target consumers and strategic consumer segments.
• Strong, validated brand equity. This allows room for local exploitation and the tailoring of elements of the marketing mix (e.g. copy) to best meet the needs of local markets.
• Superior consumer acceptance based on clearly defined product model.
• Clearly defined degrees of freedom that apply to both brand and product. The degrees of freedom allow some flexibility but keep the product experience intact.
• Technology and Product gatekeeper. To coordinate and concur to regional and local product plans.
• Brand franchise gatekeeper. To coordinate and concur to regional and local commercial plans.