Growth and innovation consulting is the work of deciding where a company’s next growth will come from, proving the demand is real before capital is committed to it, and building the innovation capability that turns the decision into products, services and business models. It joins growth strategy to innovation strategy and delivery, because the two fail apart: it is a capital allocation question first and a creative one second. Vivaldi has done this work since 1999, for companies including Coca-Cola, Siemens, Starbucks, Vodafone, Takeda, Bosch and McGraw-Hill.
Growth and innovation clients include
- Since 1999growth strategy and innovation work
- 200+published case studies
- 10 officeson four continents
- 5xWirtschaftsWoche Best of Consulting, Strategy and Innovation
- Hidden in Plain Sightthe demand-first innovation argument, written by our founder
When companies bring us in
Growth strategy and innovation work is usually bought by a CEO, chief strategy officer or head of innovation at a large company where the core is still performing and the growth curve has flattened. The trigger is an event, not a planning cycle.
- The share-gain plan has hit its ceiling. Every remaining point of share is defended by the competitor most motivated to keep it, and the cost of taking it no longer clears the cost of capital.
- The pipeline is full and nobody can rank it. There are more concepts than funding and no written criteria, so screening happens by seniority and the loudest room wins.
- A supply-side program has finished. Cost, capital and execution have been fixed, the market has priced that as harvesting, and the question is what gets built on the platform.
- A category boundary has dissolved. Customers are solving the job somewhere else, and the category data the plan is built on no longer describes the demand.
- A diversification is about to be funded. The company is operationally capable of entering the space and nobody has established whether customers will grant it permission to be there.
Why the share-gain growth plan runs out
The standard growth plan starts from share. It maps the category, sizes the competitors, finds where a point or two can be taken, and builds a program to take it. That is a legitimate way to defend a position and a poor way to grow, because it competes for the smallest available prize against the people most motivated to keep it.
The opposing case is worth conceding. Share gain is measurable, the data exists, and a board can be held to it. Demand that has not formed yet is harder to size and easier to argue about. That is exactly why most companies choose the smaller prize: not because they believe it is bigger, but because it is easier to defend in a planning meeting. The cost shows up in two places.
- The pipeline fills with what the company can make. Ideas are generated from capability rather than from demand, so screening becomes a matter of taste and the concepts that survive are the ones with the most senior sponsor.
- The target is set against a category the customer does not use. The plan then competes for a pool of demand that is already fully served, and the growth it forecasts has to come out of somebody else’s hands.
Companies rarely fail because they executed a growth plan badly. They fail because the plan was aimed at demand that was never going to move. The growth gap is usually a diagnosis problem rather than an execution problem, which is why we start by re-drawing the map before anyone argues about ideas.
What our growth and innovation consulting services include
Six bodies of work, each with its own page. Most engagements need two or three, and which two depends on whether the constraint is knowing where to grow or being able to build there.
1. Growth strategy
Where the next growth comes from, sized and evidenced rather than asserted. Start here if nobody in the business can say which pool of demand the plan is competing for: growth strategy.
- Demand spaces mapped from what customers are trying to get done, not from the category boundary the industry organizes around
- The spaces where the company already has a right to win, and the ones where it would be a tourist
- A growth forecast split into share gain and new demand, so the board can see which half of the number is actually new
2. Innovation strategy and delivery
An idea pipeline is not an innovation strategy. An architecture is a small number of named platforms, each a territory the company intends to build in, with written criteria that decide what qualifies: innovation strategy. Strategy and delivery are one job here, because an architecture nobody builds against is a slide.
- Structured idea generation at volume, screened against strategic and commercial criteria written down before the ideas arrived
- Concepts developed far enough to be evaluated honestly, including the ones that should be killed
- A roadmap that says what gets built first and what the second wave depends on, with the delivery sequence and owners attached
- 100+Ideas generatedLarge-scale generation against the brief, which is the cheap part and the part most programs stop at
- ScreenStrategic and commercial criteriaWritten down before the ideas arrived, so the screen is a decision rule rather than a preference
- 21Concepts developedTaken far enough to be evaluated and carried into market testing, rather than scored on a slide
- 4Platforms that hold the roadmapNamed territories the brand has permission to build in, so each concept is a claim on ground rather than an item on a list
3. Business model design
New demand often cannot be served profitably through the existing model, which is a design problem rather than a pricing one. Go here when the demand is understood and the economics are not: business model innovation.
- How value is created, delivered and captured in the target space, and where that differs from the core business
- What it implies for cost structure, partners and capital
- What has to be true for the model to clear the cost of capital, stated as testable conditions rather than assumptions
4. Product and service innovation
The build itself: concepts turned into products and services that reach a market. Start here when the direction is settled and the constraint is getting something launched that people adopt: product and service innovation.
- Concept development, prototyping and validation with the customers who would actually buy
- Launch sequencing, including what the first release has to prove before the second is funded
- The commercial case per concept, so the portfolio can be balanced across core, adjacent and new
5. Open innovation
Some growth is faster to reach through partners, startups and ecosystem relationships than through internal build. That is a structural choice, not a procurement one: open innovation.
- Where a partner or an ecosystem gets you to the demand faster than building alone, and where it only adds a dependency
- Partner and venture scouting against the platforms the innovation strategy named
- The governance that decides what is built, bought or partnered, before each case is argued on its own
6. Innovation playbook
A roadmap is a deliverable. A repeatable way to generate and screen the next roadmap is a capability, and it is what you are left holding after we leave: innovation playbook.
- The screening criteria, stage gates and decision rights, documented so the next cycle does not start from scratch
- Training and working sessions that put the method in the hands of the teams who run it weekly
- A measurement model that reports pipeline value rather than pipeline activity
Two boundaries are worth drawing, because they decide where an engagement should start. If the question is what the company is permitted to become before it builds anywhere, that is brand strategy, and it usually runs first. If the growth depends on the interactions around the product rather than the product itself, that is experience strategy. Growth strategy and innovation sits between them: it decides where to grow and what to build, on the permission brand strategy establishes.
Not sure which of these you need first?
Start with a working session with one of our partners. We will look at the current growth plan, how much of it depends on taking share, and which of the six bodies of work would change the next funding decision.
How a growth strategy and innovation engagement works
- Diagnose. Customer and non-customer research, demand space mapping, and a review of the current pipeline, portfolio and growth forecast. The output is a clear view of where demand will pool and how much of the plan depends on taking share.
- Decide. Platform options and the right-to-win test, with screening criteria agreed and written down before ideas are generated. The output is a decision about territory, with the exclusions named.
- Build. Idea generation at volume, structured screening, concept development and business model design for the spaces that survived. The output is a sequenced roadmap with a commercial case per concept.
- Embed. Playbooks, stage gates, training and a measurement model, so the organization can run the next cycle without us.
Growth strategy and innovation results
Quaker: $50 million in first-year sales from one innovation
Quaker’s bar line was in sustained decline as cleaner-ingredient challengers took the snacking occasion. We built the Embrace Everyday brand platform and used it to direct product innovation rather than only communication. The Quaker Breakfast Cookie, the flagship innovation from that platform, generated $50 million in first-year sales, and the broader bar program reversed a -3.4% decline and achieved +9% growth within 18 months of launch. Read the full story: How Vivaldi helped Quaker reverse a product decline with the Embrace Everyday brand platform.
Starbucks: 11 million cardholders from a product nobody else had built
Starbucks wanted a relationship with customers that went beyond transaction frequency. We developed the innovation strategy behind a triple-branded card that combined credit, stored value and loyalty in a single product. The card attracted 11 million cardholders and delivered 1% rewards on all purchases, establishing Starbucks as a pioneer in retail loyalty innovation long before loyalty apps became standard. Read the full story: How Vivaldi helped Starbucks pioneer loyalty card innovation.
Siemens: 140+ ideas screened down to 35 priority concepts
Siemens needed a leadership program that produced strategic innovation rather than only capable managers. We designed a curriculum that combined neuroscience, behavioral nudges, gamification and AI learning tools, and ran it so that participants generated real concepts against real criteria. Over 140 ideas emerged, and Vivaldi helped Siemens prioritize 35 high-potential concepts that fed directly into the strategic innovation pipeline. Read the full story: How Vivaldi built Siemens’ innovation education program.
Growth strategy and innovation by industry
Food and beverage
Technology and industrial
Financial services
Healthcare and life sciences
Education
Why companies choose Vivaldi for growth strategy and innovation
Most firms sell one end of this. Strategy houses hand over a growth thesis and leave the building to someone else; innovation agencies run a process and take the direction as given. We do both, and we think the join is where the value is.
- We start from demand, not from ideas. The argument is set out in Hidden in Plain Sight, written by our founder: build back from what customers are already trying to get done rather than forward from what the company can make.
- Permission is tested, not assumed. Capability analysis is common and permission analysis is rare, and the gap between the two is the most frequent reason a well-executed diversification fails.
- The screening criteria are written before the ideas arrive. That is what makes the pipeline rankable and what stops the most senior sponsor from winning by default.
- We hand over the method. The playbook, the gates and the measurement model stay with your teams, because the concepts have a shelf life and the capability does not.
- Brand and innovation are one practice here. They have to be, because what a company is permitted to become bounds what it should try to build.
How to evaluate a growth strategy and innovation consultant
Including us. These are the five questions worth putting to every firm on a shortlist.
- Ask where their growth number comes from. If it is share of an existing category, you are buying a defense plan described as a growth plan. Ask what proportion of the forecast depends on demand that does not exist yet, and how that portion was sized.
- Ask how they screen ideas. A firm that cannot show you written screening criteria will screen by seniority. Ask to see the criteria from a previous engagement and how many concepts they killed.
- Ask what they do about permission. A firm that never asks whether customers would accept the company in the new space will hand you a plan that tests well internally and fails in market.
- Ask what you are left holding. A roadmap and a repeatable way to produce the next roadmap cost differently and are worth differently. Be clear which one you are buying.
- Ask them to describe a growth path they advised a client against. A firm that has never talked a client out of an adjacency has either been very lucky or is not really advising.
Growth and innovation consultancy, innovation agency or large management consultancy?
| Criterion | Growth and innovation consultancy | Innovation agency | Large management consultancy |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it decides | Which demand to go after, what the brand has permission to build, and which concepts get funded | What gets designed and prototyped inside a direction someone else set | Corporate strategy, portfolio and cost, with innovation treated as a downstream program |
| Typical deliverables | Demand spaces, innovation platforms, written screening criteria, developed concepts, business model design, sequenced roadmap | Sprints, prototypes, concept decks, a process the client runs afterward | Market sizing, growth roadmap, operating model, business case |
| Who signs it off | CEO, chief strategy officer and head of innovation together | Innovation or product leadership | CEO, CFO and the board |
| How success is measured | Revenue from new demand, concepts that reach market, and whether the next cycle runs without help | Volume and quality of concepts produced | Revenue, margin and cost |
| Best when | The core is performing, the share-gain plan has hit its ceiling, and nobody can rank the pipeline | The direction is settled and the constraint is build capacity | The constraint is operational or structural rather than demand |
Related work
Growth and innovation rarely arrive on their own. Before the build, brand strategy settles what the company has permission to become and what the portfolio is worth. After it, experience strategy decides which interactions around the product are worth funding. All three sit inside our Brand, Innovation and Experience practice at Vivaldi, the firm behind the demand landscape and the interaction field.
Growth and innovation consulting in the US and worldwide
We run growth and innovation consulting engagements from ten offices on four continents. US work is led out of our New York headquarters and our Los Angeles office. The method travels, but demand does not: a demand space that is forming in one market is often already served in another, and the right to win can be real in one country and absent next door. Where a program spans markets, we map demand locally and hold the platform architecture and screening criteria common, so the portfolio can still be ranked as one.
Start with where your growth is actually supposed to come from
A working session on the current growth plan, how much of it depends on taking share, and what the pipeline would look like if the screening criteria were written down first.
