Product innovation consulting is the work of deciding which new products and services a company should actually create, proving that real demand exists before the development budget is committed, and fixing the decision rules that let weak concepts through while quietly killing strong ones. Vivaldi has done this work since 1999, for companies including Coca-Cola, Western Union and ACH Food Companies.
- Since 1999product and service innovation for global companies
- 200+published case studies
- 10 officeson four continents
- 5xWirtschaftsWoche Best of Consulting, Strategy and Innovation
- Travel Wisea Western Union product line we helped create, now sold in the UK and US
When companies bring us in
Product innovation work is usually bought by a chief growth officer, a head of innovation or a category president, and almost never at the start of a planning cycle. Something specific has happened.
- The core range has stopped growing. Volume is being defended with price and promotion, and the next point of growth is not available inside the current product line.
- The pipeline is full of concepts and short of launches. Ideas are plentiful, the gates are crowded, and nobody can explain why a given project is still alive. ACH Food Companies was exactly this problem.
- The company wants to move outside its category. It is operationally capable of serving a new occasion and has no evidence that customers want it from this brand. Western Union was this problem.
- A new consumer need has appeared and the category definition hides it. The demand is visible in culture and invisible in the sales data, because the company only measures the shelf it already owns.
- A launch has failed and nobody can say why. Was the idea wrong, was the evidence thin, or did the gate let it through without either? Until that is settled the next launch carries the same risk.
Why treating innovation as an ideas problem does not work
Most innovation programs buy ideation. Workshops, sprints, trend decks, an innovation lab with good furniture. They reliably produce more concepts, and more concepts is almost never the binding constraint. In the companies we are called into, the pipeline is already full. What is missing is a defensible way to choose.
Two things go wrong, and they compound. The first is that ideas get generated inside the category lines the company is already organized around, so the output can only optimize demand the company already captures. A beverage company asked to innovate will produce beverages. The profitable opportunities usually sit across those lines, in an occasion nobody owns, which is why the first piece of real work is a demand assessment rather than a workshop.
The second is that the gate does not actually decide anything. Criteria are vague, the evidence standard changes by project, the loudest sponsor wins, and killing a project is socially expensive, so weak concepts survive and absorb the development capacity that a strong one needed. That is a process design problem, not a creativity problem, and it is fixable in weeks rather than years. It is also the part of the work almost nobody sells, because it is less enjoyable than an ideation session and considerably more valuable.
What our product innovation services include
Five bodies of work. Most engagements use three of them, and which three depends on whether the constraint is evidence, decision making, or the ability to repeat either one.
1. Demand assessment across the occasions you do not serve
We start outside the current range, because that is where the growth that is not already priced in tends to sit.
- An assessment of the occasions in which customers are already spending, including the ones your category definition does not cover
- Quantitative sizing of each one, so the choice between them is an argument about numbers rather than about who presented best
- Qualitative depth on the two or three that survive sizing, because a number tells you an occasion is large and not what would make a customer switch
- A written view of which opportunities this brand has the standing to enter, which is a different question from whether the company could build them
2. Concept development and testing before the build
Concepts exist to be falsified cheaply. The point of this stage is to find out which ones fail while failing is still inexpensive.
- Cross-functional concept development with your own commercial, R&D and marketing people in the room, not a deck delivered to them
- Concepts rendered far enough to react to, with the proposition, the price and the reason to switch stated
- Testing for resonance and attractiveness, including where the volume would come from, since a concept that only cannibalizes your own range is not growth
- A short list carried forward with the evidence attached, so the next gate inherits the reasoning rather than the enthusiasm
3. Innovation process and gate design
This is the part of the work that keeps paying after we leave. A stage and gate process is only as good as what each gate is allowed to ask for and what it is allowed to stop.
- An audit of the existing process against practice inside and outside your industry, with a fit and gap analysis that rates each element and says which gaps matter
- Explicit go and no-go criteria at every gate, with the evidence standard named, so a project cannot pass on seniority
- Portfolio management rules covering how many projects can be live at once, and what has to stop for something new to start
- Charters, scorecards and templates, so cross-functional teams arrive at a gate with comparable material
- FindWhere demand is formingOccasions customers already pay for, including the ones outside your category definitionUsually narrow
- ShapeConcepts worth testingPropositions rendered far enough that a customer can accept or reject themUsually strong
- DecideWhat proceeds and what stopsGo and no-go criteria at each gate, with the evidence standard fixed in advanceUsually unenforced
- LearnWhat the launch taught youIn-market results returned to the criteria that approved the projectUsually absent
4. The launch plan and the business case behind it
A concept that clears the last gate still has to reach a market, usually against an incumbent behavior rather than an incumbent competitor.
- A sequenced launch plan with a defined first market, because a pilot in one geography buys information that a simultaneous global launch does not
- The commercial case, including what the new line is expected to take from existing payment methods, habits or products rather than from thin air
- Packaging, naming and messaging tested with the target segment before the spend, not after it
- The decision rule for scaling, so the pilot has a pass mark written before the results arrive
5. Metrics, roles and the capability to repeat it
If the process only works while we are in the building, we have sold you a project rather than a capability.
- Metric categories and specific criteria for each stage, covering adoption and commercial performance rather than activity
- Roles and responsibilities for cross-functional team members, including who is accountable for a no-go
- Training, workshops and guidelines, delivered with your management team rather than to it
- Revisions to how knowledge is shared, so the reasoning behind a killed project survives the people who killed it
Full pipeline, not enough launches?
Start with a working session with one of our partners. We will look at the last three projects your gates approved, what evidence each one carried, and whether the criteria would have stopped the one that failed.
How a product innovation engagement works
- Map. Assess the occasions where customers already spend, size them, and establish which ones this brand has standing to enter. The output is a ranked set of opportunities with the reasoning written down.
- Shape. Cross-functional concept development against the prioritized opportunities, rendered far enough for customers to react to. The output is concepts with propositions, not territories.
- Prove. Test resonance, attractiveness and source of volume, then pilot in one market. The output is a short list with evidence attached and a pass mark set in advance.
- Embed. Gate criteria, portfolio rules, metrics, templates, roles and training, so the next cycle runs without us. The output is a process your teams can defend to a board.
Product innovation results
Western Union: an eight-month project that produced a new product line
Western Union was the premier choice for the unbanked, and the digitalization of payment services was taking market share. During the eight-month project we assessed all money moving occasions to understand the potential revenue streams that new markets could represent. Leisure travel to developing countries stood out, because travelers move on average $230 billion in cash per year. A quantitative survey in the US, UK and Germany identified sub-segments, three of which we explored through in-depth interviews into the frustrations and fears travelers encountered. A two-day cross-functional ideation workshop produced a playbook of new product and service concepts, a selection were brought to life and tested for market resonance and for how they would absorb share from existing payment methods, and the optimized proposition was piloted in the UK. It is now offered among Western Union's core offering in the UK and US as Western Union Travel Wise, and was awarded Best Travel Companion by Pay Before. Read the full story: Western Union's leap to digital dominance.
Coca-Cola: five markets assessed, ending in a one-year launch plan
Coca-Cola wanted to connect more deeply with consumers and address unmet needs, and asked us to assess the real needs of consumers across five different markets worldwide alongside key shifts in their relationships to health and wellness. The team worked through five phases, starting with cultural trends mapping and social analysis, running a global quantitative survey to identify growth platforms in parallel, and following it with a qualitative deep dive to explain the differences between the five markets. Those inputs became innovation platforms for ideation; 25 product concepts were developed with stakeholders from across markets and functions, each designed and adjusted for its specific market, then put through focus groups on concept, packaging and messaging. The closing week-long work session produced a one-year plan to launch a brand new consumer product into market. Read the full story: Coca-Cola's consumer connection revolution.
ACH Food Companies: a product innovation process rebuilt for a new market
ACH Food Companies had moved from food service and ingredients into the consumer market after acquiring several consumer food brands, and its product development process was not built for the pace that consumer launches demand. We audited the existing stage and gate system, gathered practices from inside and outside packaged food, and provided a fit and gap analysis with comparative ratings and relative importance to show which gaps to act on first. We then defined metric categories and criteria for each stage, documented process guidelines and timelines, set go and no-go criteria for each gate, rebuilt the charters, scorecards and supporting templates, defined roles for cross-functional team members, and delivered a training plan with workshops alongside the management team. ACH's streamlined process now moves products from idea to market considerably faster than it used to. Read the full story: Spicing up the product innovation process.
Why companies choose Vivaldi for product and service innovation
There are three honest reasons to pick a firm for product and service innovation consulting, and none of them is methodology.
- We start with demand, not with ideas. The Western Union work began with an assessment of every money moving occasion, which is how a money transfer company ended up with a travel product. An ideation session would not have found it.
- We will work on your gates. Most firms will happily run the workshop and leave the decision process alone. Rebuilding criteria, scorecards and no-go rules is less glamorous and it is usually where the recoverable value is.
- We build the capability, then leave. Training plans, templates, roles and metrics are part of the engagement rather than an upsell, because a process that depends on us is a liability on your side of the table.
- Brand and product are decided together. We have run corporate brand and portfolio work since 1999, so the question of whether your brand has permission to enter an occasion is answered with the same evidence as whether the occasion is worth entering.
How to evaluate a product innovation consultant
Five questions worth asking any firm on your shortlist, including us.
- What would you do in the first six weeks if we told you the pipeline is already full? A firm whose answer is another ideation program has diagnosed nothing.
- Name a concept you recommended killing, and what the evidence was. Firms that have never argued against their own output are selling activity.
- Where does the volume for this concept come from? If the business case does not name what the new product takes share from, it is not a business case.
- Who owns the gate criteria when you leave, and what do they look like in writing? Ask to see a scorecard from a real engagement.
- Will you work outside our category definition? The occasions that are worth most are usually the ones your current reporting cannot see.
Product innovation consultancy, innovation agency or management consultancy?
| Criterion | Product innovation consultancy | Innovation or product design agency | Large management consultancy |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it decides | Which products and services are worth creating, on evidence of demand, and what the gates should stop | What the chosen product looks like and how it behaves | Portfolio economics, operating model and cost to serve |
| Typical deliverables | Demand assessment, tested concepts, gate criteria, portfolio rules, launch plan and business case | Concepts, prototypes, service blueprints, design systems | Strategy roadmap, operating model, savings case |
| Where the evidence comes from | Occasion sizing, customer research and in-market concept testing | User research and usability testing on the chosen direction | Market data, benchmarks and internal financials |
| What you own afterward | A repeatable process with criteria, metrics, templates and named roles | Design assets and specifications | A plan and a model, usually re-engaged to run it |
| When it is the wrong choice | When the product is already chosen and only needs designing and building | When nobody has established that the product should exist | When the question is what customers want rather than what the P&L allows |
Related work
Product and service innovation sits inside our growth and innovation consulting practice, which owns the practice-level question of where growth comes from. Six neighboring services answer adjacent questions, and the boundaries matter when you are scoping.
- Innovation strategy owns the portfolio and governance of innovation: how much to bet, across which horizons, and who decides.
- Growth strategy owns where growth comes from at company level, before anyone asks which product should carry it.
- Business model innovation owns the question of whether the business model itself has to change, rather than what the model should sell.
- Open innovation owns innovating with outside parties: partners, suppliers, startups and customers.
- Innovation playbook owns the repeatable method once the approach is settled and needs to be documented and taught.
- Service design designs the thing and its handoffs once the decision is made. We decide which products and services are worth creating; service design decides how the chosen one actually works for the customer and the staff delivering it.
Product innovation consulting in the US and worldwide
We work from 10 offices on four continents, and product innovation is one of the few services where that genuinely changes the answer. An occasion that is large in the US may not exist in Germany, and a concept that tests well in one market frequently fails in another for reasons a central team cannot see. The Coca-Cola work assessed five markets for that reason, and the Western Union survey ran in the US, UK and Germany before anything was piloted.
US engagements are led from our New York office, with European and Asian work run by local teams rather than flown in. Our product innovation services are bought most often by consumer goods, food and beverage, financial services and B2B industrial companies, and the engagement model is the same in each: a demand assessment first, concepts second, and a decision process you keep.
Find out which opportunity is actually worth building
Tell us where your range has stopped growing and which occasions you suspect you are missing. We will come back with a view on what a demand assessment would need to cover and what it would be likely to find.
