CAPABILITIES WE BUILD / MARKET-DRIVEN INNOVATION EXCELLENCE

Your R&D team is technically strong.
Build the system that points that strength at the right problems.

Market-Driven Innovation Excellence is a capability-building program for B2B organizations that need their innovation, R&D, and technical teams to define problems clearly, validate assumptions early, and make confident go, pivot, or stop decisions before the investment is already made.

THE PROBLEM

The cost of solving the wrong problem is measured in years.

Your R&D team is talented. That is not the problem. Talent pointed in the wrong direction, at the wrong problem, too early in the wrong solution, produces the same result as no talent at all. Wasted months. Overrun budgets. Capable people working hard without confidence that the effort will land.

You have probably seen it. A project that started with seemingly real promise, moved through development with real commitment, and arrived at commercialization to hear: the market does not need what R&D built. Or leadership asks about ROI on R&D spend, and the honest answer is harder to give than it should be. Credibility erodes. The next investment of dollars and trust is harder to win.

The champion who brings this program to an organization is carrying more than a capability gap. They are carrying a change management challenge. B2B organizations, often lack consistent access to the full range of customer and market voices needed to make evidence-based decisions. R&D scientists and engineers are being asked to have conversations that feel outside their boundary lines. Marketing is reluctant to engage the value chain directly for fear of disrupting sales relationships. And quarterly results pressure is pushing everyone toward shorter horizons at exactly the moment the organization needs to invest in longer ones.

Short-term projects are necessary, but they do not build the future. A portfolio that includes long bets requires the discipline to rigorously validate those bets, engage the full value chain honestly, and stop early when the evidence says to stop. The system has to be built.

The person leading this program has usually been living with this tension for a while. They know what good looks like. And most are motivated by something beyond the metrics. They want their team to make a lasting contribution to their company, their industry, and the problems their science exists to solve. Building this capability is more than improving hit rates. When executed well, it creates the conditions in which talented people can do their best work, make real decisions, and leave an impact worth leaving.

THE EVIDENCE

THE PROGRAM BUILT TO DELIVER THE INNOVATION RESULTS LEADERS DEMAND.

"Kelly's experience and knowledge brings valuable information on the front-end-innovation process. Thought provoking - this training will help you approach innovation in a structured way."

R&D Practitioner, Global Materials Science Company

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

Innovation Teams who identify profitable problems to solve and deliver results with confidence.

Market-driven innovation is a growth function. Innovation teams are responsible for identifying problems worth solving, validating that those problems represent real market demand, and developing solutions that connect technical capability to customer needs and market reality. They are the engine that builds the future. When they operate with a clear process, they ask better questions before committing resources, engage the full value chain before locking in direction, and bring leadership recommendations grounded in evidence. The program builds the skills and system to deliver real growth consistently and with confidence.

TODAY’S GAPS

• Teams jump to solutions before the problem is defined

• Outside perspective comes in late or not at all
  

• Assumptions go unvalidated through long development cycles

• Go and stop decisions are delayed or avoided
  

• R&D and commercial teams work in separate lanes

• Projects advance on hope rather than evidence
  

• Value propositions are built after the solution, not before

• Capability lives in individuals and walks out when people change roles or leave

What your organization gains: higher R&D hit rates and ROI, fewer mismatched or overengineered outcomes, reduced rework and faster development cycles, stronger value propositions grounded in real market demand, less sunk-cost drag on the portfolio, a capability that compounds over time, and a repeatable system that scales across regions and business units.

Real INNOVATION GROWTH.

BEHAVIOR CHANGE UNDERWAY

In their own words.

When asked what behavior changes they were seeing in themselves, colleagues, and the organization, program participants reported:

"Asking better questions before jumping to a solution."

"Understanding the real problem to be solved and the power of external connections."

“A little more thought about who to involve."

"Interest in external connections."

IS THIS THE RIGHT FIT?

Built for organizations where innovation is a growth imperative.

The clients who get the most from this program are leading an innovation function, an R&D organization, or a capability-building initiative with a mandate to improve how their organization identifies and pursues growth opportunities. Sometimes that person is a VP of R&D or a Head of Innovation. Sometimes it is a leader who has watched the same pattern repeat across too many projects. In every case, they are the champion who sees the gap clearly and has decided something has to change. Their organization has the technical talent. What it needs is the system to deliver innovation results.

This is the right conversation to have if your organization is experiencing any of the following:

• Growth is not meeting expectations; the root cause may not be clear

• Leadership is asking for improved ROI on R&D spend

• Problem definition is incomplete before development begins

• Outside perspective is not used early or often enough

• R&D and commercial teams are not aligned on what problems to solve

WHAT PRACTITIONERS LEARN

The critical thinking skills and market-driven frameworks to define the profitable problems worth solving.

Every topic is selected and customized to your organization's needs, industry, and growth priorities. The program addresses capability across the full front end of innovation, from problem identification through assumption validation and solution fit.

• Define problems clearly and consistently

• Use external insight to reduce uncertainty

• Surface what must be true for success

• Evaluate solution fit with rigor

• Build evidence-based business cases

• Make confident early recommendations

The program also includes leadership-specific modules that equip managers with the tools to set expectations, remove barriers, reinforce new behaviors, and create the conditions where the capability actually takes hold.

REAL GROWTH CAPABILITY EMBEDDED ACROSS THE ORGANIZATION.

“This is a good chance to understand what market-driven innovation actually is. It helps expand awareness of the parts of our projects that we could be more involved in, but don't always know how to get there. This training helps inspire how to actually go and have those conversations."

R&D Practitioner, Global Materials Science Company

HOW DOES THE PROGRAM WORK?

Design and build. Then deliver, coach, and sustain.

We meet your organization where it is. Some clients need the full capability system designed before delivery begins. Others are ready to start training. The goal is the same in every case: a capability your organization owns, can sustain without us, and can scale to new regions, functions, and business units over time.

Phase 1: Design & build

We map each capability area to standardized processes, best practices, and enabling tools. We build the full training curriculum: instructor guides, participant workbooks, case exercises, and AI toolkits with prompt libraries and workflow designs. We design the blended delivery model covering in-person workshops, virtual modules, and on-demand digital content. Playbooks, templates, and frameworks are built for enterprise adoption and owned by your organization upon delivery.

Leadership & executive coaching

Leadership champions receive all-access advisory support throughout the engagement. This is real-time support to work through the challenges that arise when new practices are being embedded in a complex organization. Navigating the matrix, reinforcing new behaviors, ensuring the program delivers the business impact leadership is expecting. Leaders can reach out as challenges arise, not just on scheduled calls.

Engagements are structured as a project retainer, giving your organization maximum flexibility and a capped budget. Scope adapts as priorities evolve. Coaching blocks, regional expansion, additional topics, and additional cohorts can be added as the program matures.

A PRACTICAL APPROACH THAT MEETS YOU WHERE YOU ARE
AND MOVES YOU WHERE YOU WANT TO BE.

WHY LAWRENCE INNOVATION

We built B2B market-driven innovation capability
from inside the organizations you are trying to change.

The question I hear most often from senior leaders is a simple one: Can you teach our teams to do what you do? That question is the origin of this program.

Innovation takes a skill set that doesn't often exist in large corporations, as evidenced by the low hit rates when companies try to penetrate new markets, develop new technologies, or diversify. These skills can be built. Each innovation effort is different. It has its own nuances and hurdles that must be overcome. When you want to build this unique and critical capability, you need the people who have done it to teach it.

Generic training programs don't work. Teaching one skill and ignoring the others required for success doesn't work. I sat through those programs in my corporate career. I watched teams leave a training session energized and revert to old habits within weeks because there was no system, no reinforcement, and no one coaching them through the hard part of actually applying it.

Every practitioner involved in this program has spent decades executing market-driven innovation excellence in B2B environments, building businesses, managing portfolios, and delivering results in roles where the outcomes were their responsibility. Prior to founding Lawrence Innovation, Kelly had the privilege of working with a team that built a mid-eight-figure business at Berkshire Hathaway’s Lubrizol during the inflection point of an industry transformation.

We have built and delivered market-driven innovation excellence programs inside the matrixed organizations you are navigating. We’ve helped our client companies representing over $130 billion in revenue accelerate and de-risk growth. We understand how capability gets embedded in large organizations because we have done it.

The goal of every engagement is the same: build the system, transfer the capability, and graduate your organization into self-sufficiency. Clients leave with a process, a toolkit, and trained practitioners. That is what sustainable innovation growth capability looks like.

Built by practitioners for practitioners.

"Kelly is in that small group of professionals that have truly mastered the entire front end of B2B innovation."

Dan Adams, Founder, AIM Institute

Now Forming 2027 Cohorts.

Organizations that engage in Q3 and Q4 benefit from a dedicated planning period to finalize cohorts, align leadership, and ensure a strong program launch. Enrollment is kept deliberately small so every organization receives direct access, full customization, and the attention it takes to drive real behavior change.

START THE CONVERSATION

The first step is a conversation.
No preparation required.

Tell us where your organization is and where you want to go.
We’ll tell you whether this program is the right fit.
We will be direct with you either way.