An Overview of Innovation Consulting

At its core, innovation consulting involves bringing together technical, creative, and analytical skills to solve business problems, address societal issues, and transform ideas into reality.

Innovation is an umbrella term for designing and developing new products, navigating unchartered business environments, and creating change in unexpected ways. Consultants here are forward thinkers. Some aspects overlap with management consulting because of the skillset needed to do the job. Innovation consultants must still identify a problem, analyze possible solutions, strategise, recommend, and present effectively.

Innovation consultants aim to create an impact, and prioritise stakeholders over shareholders. IDEO, a design firm founded in Palo Alto, is the embodiment of this approach. Its founders are leaders in design thinking, and famously have paved the way for human centered design thinking. They designed Apple’s first mouse.  The Innovation Consulting Community sets out its completed projects on its website, which provide a window into the industry. Projects have included redesigning shipping containers to grow specialty crops, using behavioral analytics to understand changes in a baseball team’s fan base using ticket sales, and identifying fun and interesting new product ideas using origami design thinking for a company that builds high performance foldable kayaks.

While innovation consulting may seem as though it should have a focus on flying cars and new age technology, it is really about embracing a different way of thinking, learning, and collaborating.  The wealth of knowledge does not typically lie with the consultant, who must engage with various stakeholders such as academics, experts, and members of the general public to find answers. When navigating uncharted territory, you never know who will have the key piece of information that leads to a breakthrough. An interesting practical example was the theatrical makeup artist who provided the key to a company’s infection preventing healthcare products. Innovation involves finding scattered ideas and connecting the dots to arrive at a desired outcome. The dormant potential that lies in the minds of a hundred different people can only be discovered through collaboration.

The pursuit of innovation often requires consultants to be in the field, and to rely on their team.  After all, innovative ideas thrive on peer relationships, open communication, trial and error, and a bit of serendipity.  IDEO notes that “enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone genius.”  Following this approach means that key insights can’t be hoarded by management and instead need to be shared amongst the team in order to keep the ideas and creative juices flowing. This has the potential to create a highly desirable work environment where the barriers between management and staff are lowered and consultants are able to build close personal relationships.

All aspiring consultants should consider the innovation space as a possible career path.  The area is still young and full of growth potential. Even well-established innovation firms, such as IDEO, have only been around for a few decades.  Management consulting frameworks and structured thinking will be of limited use in this field since innovation involves coming up with fresh ideas to address novel situations.  However, this is what makes the field so exciting.

You will need to check your ego at the door, and develop the humility needed to encounter failures and surprises that inevitably show up in the process of being creative. Stupid questions may be just what is needed to crack the case as they take you beyond the answers you learned in school. For example, imagine having a masters in sociology and being assigned to a mine or a construction project. Younger consultants who are less specialized may do better in this environment as, knowing that they don’t have all the answers, are likely to be more flexible and less invested in traditional approaches.

To gain a competitive edge, your creativity muscles must be strengthened. Engage in brainstorming in topic areas you have never encountered, learn about real life business cases in industries you are unfamiliar with, practice uncommon consulting cases, draw up a list of debating topics and develop strong arguments for both sides, learn to accept different perspectives and see the value in each one, and practice formulating questions about anything and everything.

As an aspiring innovation consultant, you should enter the industry with purpose and intention. Purpose is important because the space is dynamic. You need to have a clear goal to keep focused on the pertinent issues within a chaotic space. Intention is vital because the job requires high levels of commitment, emotional labour, and intrinsic motivation that the consultant himself must bring to the table in order to complete each project, learn continuously, and build a network of trusted collaborators.  Your educational background is not as important as your ability to learn, stay humble, think outside the box, and turn up each day with passion and conviction.

Stay hungry, stay foolish!

Rhulani (Ruce) Ndlala is an accounting student at the University of Cape Town, and former President of the UCT Consulting Club.

Image: Unsplash

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