Innovation Strategy Consulting

"84% of executives agree that innovation is critical for their business, YET only 6% are satisfied with their innovation performance." Source: McKinsey Growth & Innovation study

Meet my clients

They are from leading technology-intensive organisations: for-profit firms and universities.

They lead innovation units, R&D, engineering and digital labs.

They rely on smart applications of existing and new technologies to support breakthrough products, services and solutions.

And they want to make a mark with an ambition to lift the innovation capability of their organisations.

But they need a reliable and trusted toolset to help them realise their strategies and make smart tune-ups to deliver better results.

CTO in £1bn global industrial products manufacturer.
CTO in £1bn global industrial products manufacturer.

“For too long we have relied on incremental upgrades to our legacy product range.

We need to do better and respond to the sustainability transition.

That includes becoming more service-orientated and changing our business model in how we make money.

Beyond that, I need to update our innovation system to make it more reliable, and repeatable and become more reliable high-value innovators.”

R&D Director in $20bn FMCG producer.
R&D Director in $20bn FMCG producer.

“I feel the burden of responsibility for the success of our new products and solutions.

I need an innovation strategy to focus our precious resources and maximise the value of our development portfolio.

And to tell a better story to convince the board for next year’s investment cases.”

CTO in Green Tech Scaleup.
CTO in Green Tech Scaleup.

“We have a breakthrough technology for carbon capture in the plan for Net Zero.

My investment runway means we are in a hurry to scale up the business from MVP to scale.

I need to validate market traction, improve my pitch to investors and make place plans to scale the business.”

The clients I have personally worked with:

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

Innovation Success is a strategic consultancy for business and technology leaders in technology-intensive organisations.

I am Rob Munro, an innovation and manufacturing expert with over 30 years’ experience walking and talking innovation.  I bring proven innovation management approaches to lift company innovation performance and find actionable sources of new revenue.

It started a long time ago! Since I was a small boy, I loved to experiment in our family workshop. As a chartered engineer in large companies, I excelled to create new products, processes and solutions that dramatically shifted the company’s prospects.

But it wasn’t enough…

Now, as a business leader and practising innovation advisor, I want to exponentially lift your performance.

Because Innovation is the most powerful response to global challenges and company renewal.

Rob About page

My career and qualifications

Before starting Innovation Success I had a successful international chemical and advanced materials companies ICI and Johnson Matthey.

My roles included leading product and process innovation for major new assets, project development, and building a new business venture.

I was fortunate to travel the world through its international businesses and saw the very best of innovation and business.

I became a chartered engineer in 1997 and fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers in 2011.

And I hold an MBA with distinction with a focus on innovation and technology management from Alliance Manchester Business School.

9 in 10 clients give 5 star ratings to my delivery.
IfM-Engage_Signature-logo

For Business Strategy and Technology Planning, I deliver services as an associate of IfM Engage the knowledge transfer company of the Institute for Manufacturing at Cambridge University.

IfM Engage has a mission to transfer and integrate world-leading knowledge and solutions to make a lasting difference to the future of manufacturing and the wider ecosystem.

My clients benefit from the world-leading research in innovation management and the many brilliant case studies.

As part of the IfM’s knowledge transfer practice, I develop and deliver projects to assist clients to move their organisations forward in the following key areas:

  • Developing effective technology, innovation and business plans that align the organisation to achieve its future potential.
  • Enabling the innovation transformation of organisations.
  • Creating more effective innovation systems and approaches specifically front-end innovation.
  • Innovation process design and facilitation.
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Large companies as part of their innovation strategies are turning to business building to realise new growth from non-incremental innovations.

To support corporates in this mission, I am an associate of Lean Scaleup.

Lean Scaleup™ is a proven framework co-created with over 20 industry-leading companies that want to achieve significant growth through corporate startups and ventures.

The growing Lean Scaleup community and practitioners are making an impact to help venture leaders

  • Assess their Scaling capability.
  • Develop a framework for effecting new venture scaling in your organisation.
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“We immediately clicked on both a professional and personal level. Rob coached us through getting ready for scale-up, helping us gain new insights to fine-tune our value proposition. A splendid sparring partner.”

CTO Creaflow

Take the next step

Breakthrough Strategy

Strategic Roadmapping workshops for breakthrough innovation and strategy.

Innovation Improvement

An integrated programme of innovation improvement.

Scale-up Coaching

Coaching programme for technology start-ups and scale-ups.