Research for Innovation™

Why start with research?

Today’s products have to work harder than ever before to attract attention and retain loyalty. Products, brands and services must combine seamlessly into an holistic customer experience that is replacing product performance as the key point of difference. To optimise innovation potential we first create a detailed landscape of information based on a systematic analysis of stakeholders, technologies and commercial objectives. This provides a robust, parameterised platform for subsequent concept creation. The goal is to create and validate concepts that are as right as possible, as early as possible, through an evidence-based approach.

Our research & strategy team

Collectively our Research for Innovation™  team has worked with some of the most successful businesses in the world, ranging from high growth start-ups to $bn global household brands. They share a passion for the discovery and validation of market opportunity and take a holistic perspective on the innovation challenge.

Research services we provide

Our team use advanced innovation tools and methodologies to uncover new opportunities from consumer and stakeholder insights, and technologies, ahead of market trends, in both consumer and healthcare sectors. Travelling the world they provide a global ethnographic view that crosses, compares, and contrasts cultural, social and economic boundaries. Working closely with clients from the earliest stages of a new innovation initiative, our wider team of designers, user experience specialists, scientists and engineers define the products and services of tomorrow, with the objective of maximising the return on our client’s investment.

Our specialist areas include:

• Sensory and affective sciences including Kansei Engineering, priming and implicit association to predict drivers of preference and purchase.
• Expertise in using a ‘jobs to be done’ research lens to uncover and prioritise innovation opportunity.
• Traditional market research techniques such as in-depth interviewing and group discussions to capture consumers' physical, cognitive and emotional reactions including behavioural research in-situ or remotely via mobile and on-line platforms.
• Co-creation where our researchers, designers and engineers develop new concepts together with stakeholders in real time.
• IP and competitor analysis, including tear downs and reverse engineering to benchmark opportunities.
• Technology and product road mapping to plan how technology can meet stakeholder needs in the future.
• Strategic analysis and thinking to optimise outcomes.
• Concept development and validation of products and experiences using our extensive design and prototyping capabilities.

We are a certified Market Research Society company partner and our team operates globally, recently working in North and South America, Africa, Asia and across Europe. International reach is supplemented locally, using our in-house user research suite and viewing facility.