Roadmapping page banner

Create a strategic innovation roadmap for new products,
solutions and technologies that shifts the needle.

TRUSTED BY GLOBAL BRANDS

Airbus, Babcock, bp, Costain, Domino Printing, GSK, Haleon, Horizon Europe, Johnson Matthey,
NPL, Thales, Pepsico, Royce Institute, Repsol, Tata Steel, Tecnalia, Queen's University

WATCH NOW

Who is The Breakthrough Innovation Roadmap for? 

The Breakthrough Innovation Roadmap is for business and innovation leaders in technology-intensive situations that want to use strategic roadmapping for innovation and technology planning. You have the ambition to create more impact for your innovation activity or build something new and be seen as a top innovator in your field.

We help you to make better, faster and less risky innovation decisions using rigorous demonstrated research-based methods.

Where would you use The Breakthrough Innovation Roadmap? 

Your established UK and European-based company probably with international reach may have become out of tune with your markets.  New technologies, digitalisation and sustainability transitions are imperative for tapping into the hidden innovation goldmine.

We work with senior business and innovation leaders in central R&D, innovation and new technology groups. Practically, this means working collaboratively across business units through tailored workshops - online or in person.

When would you use The Breakthrough Innovation Roadmap? 

Strategic Roadmapping is a demonstrated and robust tool for the planning of strategy, innovation and new technologies. Its flexibility, agility and scalability mean it finds new value at the government level, the sector level, and company business units through the product teams, including,

  • Planning for new products, processes, services and solutions for growth and profit-seeking.
  • Harvesting new value from existing technologies and capabilities: sweating the capability base.
  • Post-merger rationalisation to find synergies and new value from the combined pooling of capabilities.
  • Creating engagement in a community seeking a new innovative mission to simulate collaborative working.

What approach does The Breakthrough Innovation Roadmap follow? 

We create a tangible plan for an innovation or technology roadmap that sets you and the organisation up for a positive future. We work with you to define the motivation and the playing field: The topic, the objective and the reach. Then you select and prepare your team for a creative workshop and harness their initial ideas. We can access subject matter expertise when you need new and frame-breaking insights through our trusted network.

Based on your situation, we design the approach to facilitate one and two-day workshops – Face to Face or Online – to identify the connection between technology, strategic needs and innovative value creation. We work with you weekly in the run-up to the workshop to identify and engage the right participants in your roadmap. The workshops are both creative and help to reveal the right decisions based on priorities that emerge leading to breakthrough opportunities.

The process interconnects the Why, What, How and When and reveals the key technologies and capabilities to deliver your innovations. We provide the templates and facilitate the workshop process.

But then you have to communicate your plans.  We will write a management report in as much detail as you need with professional writers to tell a compelling narrative for investment.

How is The Breakthrough Innovation Roadmap different? 

How could you benefit from the Breakthrough Innovation Roadmap?

  • Our approach includes world-leading research and best-in-class innovation management practice. We are business associates of IfM Engage at the Institute for Manufacturing at Cambridge University a world centre of excellence in innovation and technology strategy.
  • Our team are experienced leaders from larger technology-intensive organisations and have had a career in the development and application of technology and innovation strategy and transformation.
  • It's rigorous. Careful design and use of the right innovation tool at the right time mean you get the detail to support investment decisions and help you to tell a better story.
  • It's engaging. The process taps into the talent of your staff or community and can be enhanced with global subject-matter expertise. The new war for talent gives you a response to attract and retain good people.
  • It's credible. The process is trusted by global organisations – commercial and public sector - in technology-intensive situations.
  • It builds reputation making the organisation more attractive to investors and buyers. You widen your impact to be seen as a top innovation leader as a safe pair of hands in conditions of uncertainty.

“Engaging with IfM, including its industrial associates Rob Munro and Andrew Gill, was welcomed by all stakeholders across industry, government, and academia to deliver the AMIC Strategic Technology Roadmap 2022. IfM’s experience, together with an impartial and balanced approach, was vital to the success of this exercise. With a strong focus on industry engagement in workshops and one-to-one interviews with strategic stakeholders, they have delivered a Strategic Technology Roadmap to AMIC, informed by industry-driving industry needs. The report has established a blueprint which will guide AMIC’s future strategy and investment while also informing current and future academic research and helping guide essential government support. We look forward to continued engagement with IFM as we evolve and update the Strategic Technology Roadmap.”

Colm Higgins, Head of Northern Ireland Technology Centre, Chair of the AMIC Strategic Technology Road Mapping Working Group

 

“Rob worked with the team at John Hogg Technical Solutions LTD, leading a strategy refresh programme in conjunction with the IFM. Rob was an excellent facilitator of the sessions, bringing both his personal experience and the tools of the IFM to the sessions enabling John Hogg to rebuild their strategy. The investment in working with Rob gave excellent returns when set against the growth the company has seen since. I look forward to the chance of working with Rob again.”

Dr Philip Double, Technical and Commercial Director, John Hogg Technical Solutions

"I wanted a technology roadmap. Rob was co-lead of a team where technology roadmapping was recognised as a benchmark in the industry as a well-founded process and stands up to scrutiny with rigour behind the toolkits up there with McKinsey and PWC. Extensive experience in industrial was a key factor in selecting; in industries either adjacent or overlapping and was able to share significance experience with the team."

Confidential Client, Director of Group Technology

How does The Breakthrough Innovation Roadmap work? 

Breakthrough Innovation Roadmap is a managed service for breakthrough innovation and technology planning. Before the project starts, we need to get to the starting line. First, we will hold a strategy call where you outline your objectives and we provide options for achieving those. We'll also provide you with ways to influence others in the firm to secure an agreement to proceed. When you are happy we will create a proposal along with terms and conditions detailing how the project will work. Then sign the proposal and we start.

In project scoping and detailed design, we build a tailored and engaging innovation process with you. The detail matters. We will specifically outline the approach and programme of work including the responsibilities and innovation tools. We must engage the right internal and external community, with your experts and potentially new experts bringing new knowledge. In the warm-up to workshops, we will set the scene with the participants with communication and detailed instructions.

In the workshops, we build your preliminary cases. We run the process designed together and facilitate the workshops with our expert facilitators. Each workshop is well structured with a clear objective and timetable. The workshops can be face-to-face or online to the convenience and situation of the firm. We typically conclude the workshops with a business case development or pitch for you to take forward. The whole process can take as little as 4 up to 10 weeks to complete.

Then you have to tell your story. After the workshops are complete we will transcribe all the materials produced in the workshop so all that hard work and thinking is secured. We will produce a management report, or in the case of public work, our professional report writers will produce a high-quality graphical report for publication. You can then deliver the plan that cuts through all the noise and be seen to deliver a credible solution to a tough challenge.

What will The Breakthrough Innovation Roadmap give you? 

There are several measures or outcomes you will be able to point to. We can show hard numbers such as the number of ideas, the impact of breakthrough priorities and the participant satisfaction scores.  But there are the softer benefits; such as the good vibes and stories people tell over coffee that will spread through the organisation. And because we have worked on breakthrough ideas, you will be able to show the new revenue and profit flows in the months ahead. We can expect ROI from the process of 10-50x our fees.

Our track record shows you can expect 9 out of 10 participants will give a 5* rating for delivery.

chart 1

Relevant insight articles

Sustainable Process

Creating your Roadmap for Transition in Sustainability

By Rob Munro | July 14, 2022

Reading Time 8 minutes Roadmap for Sustainability: The problem is beyond urgent. How do we transform our companies, our commerce and society to become a sustainable one? This is a hard problem and one we are demonstrably well behind on as a society and which needs a monumental effort just to catch up. The Book … Read more

After the Roadmap: Implementing the Ideas to Deliver Results

By Rob Munro | March 8, 2021

Strategic roadmapping workshop-based processes give quick answers for innovative solutions. But do you have the organisational machinery to turn those ideas into value and realise the promise? Without implementation, the strategy is just a nice chat… You’ve invested time and effort in creating your strategic roadmap. You carefully selected the strategic topic: an imperative for your … Read more

Innovation At Scale: Demonstrating a Digital Infrastructure for the Rail Sector

By Rob Munro | March 5, 2021

The UK rail industry is ripe for innovation. Challenges and frustrations faced by passengers are frequently hitting the headlines. But where should the industry start with making innovations to improve the customer experience? And how can it make sure customers are listened to as part of managing the innovation process? Rob Munro shares some insights … Read more

Strategic Roadmapping: The essential tool that innovators can’t do without (and shouldn’t even try)

By Swish Support | October 18, 2020

Connecting all of the pieces in your innovation engine is a hard problem. You need a guide. Strategic roadmapping links the why of innovation to the value to the enablers and capabilities over the horizon of opportunity. John is an SVP of engineering for a large rolling stock manufacturer supplying the rail sector and is … Read more