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What Is An Innovation Agency?

Phil McKinney
Phil McKinney
2 min read
Innovation Agency

Let us explore what an innovation agency is and how it can help bring you more success in the challenging innovation process.

Why Hire An Innovation Agency?

Innovation Agency is a term created to distinguish agencies that specialize in innovation from the agencies such as advertising, design, marketing, and PR agencies.

An innovation agency specializes in helping businesses create, market, and sell new products and services. They use a team of experts to help your business with everything from ideation to execution. An innovation consulting company allows companies to improve their innovation processes. They rarely have ideation, prototyping, product development, and launching expertise. However, they can help you develop a better process for coming up with new ideas and bringing them to the market. The crucial difference here is that an innovation agency specializes in assisting clients in creating new products, services, or business models. In contrast, innovation consultants typically advise improving existing products, services, or business models.

Characteristics Of An Innovative Agency

Agencies have innovative staff with access to creative resources, such as design studios and marketing agencies. They have a track record of helping clients successfully innovate. Innovation agencies can help clients innovate in several ways. First, they help identify and define problems that need solving. Second, they provide access to creative resources like innovators, design studios, prototyping experts, engineering expertise, and product launch expertise. Last, they guide and support clients through the challenging innovation process.

An innovative agency specializes in taking ideas and turning them into new products, services, and business models. They can help clients overcome challenges that many organizations experience in translating an idea into an innovation. They help clients identify and assess opportunities, understand the customer and their needs, and develop a strong business case. Innovation agencies also create prototypes and test them with customers. They specialize in scaling innovations, protecting and commercializing them, managing risk, and making innovations sustainable.

Using an agency with a deep track record of helping clients achieve success is an excellent way to increase your chances of success with your innovation efforts. When you choose the right agency, they bring together the expertise you don’t have to improve what you have. They have the experience and knowledge to help you navigate the challenges during the innovation process. This can be extremely helpful in ensuring that your innovation efforts are successful.

Innovation Agency Resources

If you want to learn more about innovation agencies and what is involved, start with a quick Google search of innovation agencies. There are several of them that specialize in different industries. Second, stay tuned, as I will share more about these agencies and why and how to leverage them to your benefit in future episodes. Last, check out Techtrend Group attechtrend.com.

Full Disclosure — Techtrend is the innovation agency I started in 1996 and am now the Chairman. That said, I’m not that involved in the day-to-day at Techtrend. They just recently relaunched their site and updated their project portfolio. They specialize in tech, consumer electronics, architecture, and digital immersive media experiences. Techtrend will give you a good view of an innovation agency.

To know more about Techtrend and other similar agencies, listen to this week's show: What Is An Innovation Agency?

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Phil McKinney is an innovator, podcaster, author, and speaker. He is the retired CTO of HP. Phil's book, Beyond The Obvious, shares his expertise and lessons learned on innovation and creativity.


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