Support and Develop a New Innovation Model for a Fortune 500 Food Company

Building innovation capacity and providing technology and market intelligence

After partnering successfully on multiple highly strategic projects—including supporting early-stage inspiration, sourcing cleaner ingredients for product labels, building key partnerships, and delivering technology intelligence—this confidential Fortune 500 food company considered RTI experts to be an extension of its innovation team.

When the company underwent a period of significant organizational change, they called on our innovation advisors to identify ways that we could help their teams work more effectively and adjust to a new R&D environment.

Leveraging our Past Partnership for Efficiency and Growth

Over time, we progressed from early-stage activities called “inform and inspire” projects—designed to spur ideation or concepting of innovations, products, or development areas that may require new technology enablers—to more focused research. The later stage activities include technology landscaping, value chain mapping, and scouting.

The strength of our partnership enabled our innovation advisors to meet the client’s strategic need for a custom innovation model and resources the team could use moving forward.

The client’s R&D management sets a high bar for rigor and in-depth analysis, requiring evidence of a disciplined process. To address that demand, we codified a process and delivered training to many members of the R&D team. Our multi-step training curriculum included frameworks, activities, and tools, as well as hands-on work with their team to build enduring capacity.

Improved Innovation Process Fuels Strategic Investment Decisions

Having supported this client through such a significant period of transition, we have become an important source of institutional memory for their R&D teams. Our research and analysis have directly supported their investment decisions and the forging of new partnerships.

In this way, our innovation advisors evolved from doers to enablers, helping the client’s team to build skills to support their future innovation needs.