FAST Innovation® Consulting Services
Let Stephen Guide You Through Your Innovation Journey
When you need to truly accelerate the way you innovate, you will want to leverage Stephen’s FAST Innovation consulting services.
As you embark upon your innovation journey, you will most likely want both expert and unbiased advice to guide you through the process. But it is more than a process. Clients repeatedly tell us that Stephen can see things that no one else can. Stephen’s vast knowledge can assist you with all the aspects of innovation including these commonly requested needs.
Explore the Power of Innovation through Three Essential Pillars
Your organization can’t be the best at everything. Therefore, you should not try to improve every aspect of your business. Instead, you only want to innovate where you differentiate. This powerful process helps you uncover what sets you apart from the competition and use that to drive your innovation strategy. We look at your differentiator through five lenses:
- Distinctive – Your differentiator must help you stand out in a crowded market.
- Durable – What you offer must be difficult for the competition to replicate.
- Dynamic – Tomorrow’s competition may be new entrants that make your business irrelevant.
- Desirable – Your customers determine your differentiator, and they must value what you offer.
- Disseminated – Once you have defined your differentiator, it is then used to prioritize innovation investments.
The resulting framework can help your organization massively increase the returns you receive from your innovation investments.
This is the “F” part of the FAST Innovation Model – which stands for FOCUS.
This content is from Stephen’s latest book, PIVOTAL.
As you move forward with the creation of your challenge-centered innovation culture, you may struggle with challenge definition. For many organizations, this is one of the most difficult concepts to grasp fully. We work closely with you to:
- Gather challenges and opportunities from leaders, customers, vendors, 3rd parties, universities, and trendsetters
- Assess strategic relevance (“are you asking the right questions?”)
- Reframe the challenge in a way that will increase the likelihood of it being solved (“are you asking the question the right way?”)
- Document the challenge (write-up what you want in a “brief” that accelerates solution finding)
- Determine the best path for finding solutions (“are you asking the right people?”)
Although we will initially help with the challenge definition, our objective is to transfer our methodology to you so that you can effectively do this work on your own.
This is the “A” part of the FAST Innovation Model – which stands for ASK.
This is the content in Stephen’s book, Invisible Solutions®.
Sometimes the best solutions to your challenges can be found by those not tasked with finding the answer. Therefore, organizations are turning more to open innovation and crowdsourcing as methods for finding solutions to most of their challenges. This can take many forms:
- Collaborating with different departments or divisions within your organization
- Looking to the entire organization for potential solutions
- Working with trusted 3rd parties (e.g., universities or consultants)
- Leveraging external crowdsourcing as a means of finding solutions anywhere in the world
- Partnering with suppliers and customers
- Using “tech scouting” to find existing solutions
- Leveraging innovation competitions and tournaments
- Using open innovation “bounty hunting” (paying only for solutions that meet specific criteria)
You will learn how to navigate through the confusing maze of options and pick the best method for your specific challenges. When done incorrectly, open innovation and crowdsourcing can create extra work with little result. When done properly, you will find breakthrough solutions in less time, with lower cost and reduced risk.
This is the “S” part of the FAST Innovation Model – which stands for SHIFT.
We offer a number of packages that can be tailored to meet your specific needs.
Advisory Package
Catalyst Package
Full Support
Common Questions
Stephen Shapiro’s FAST Innovation® consulting helps organizations embed innovation into how they operate, rather than relying on one-off events. Working as an expert, unbiased advisor, he helps you define your true differentiator, build a challenge-centered culture that asks better questions, and tap into open innovation and crowdsourcing. The goal is to transfer the methodology to your team so the capability stays with you.
What does Stephen Shapiro's innovation consulting involve?
It’s advisory work built around his FAST Innovation® approach, helping organizations embed innovation into how they operate rather than relying on one-off events. Stephen works as an expert, unbiased advisor across three core areas: defining your differentiator, building a challenge-centered innovation culture, and leveraging open innovation and crowdsourcing.
How is consulting different from booking a keynote?
A keynote inspires and gives your team a shared language in a single session. Consulting is ongoing, hands-on advisory work that helps you actually build and embed innovation capability over time. Many clients start with a keynote, then bring Stephen in to go deeper through consulting or a Mastery program.
What does "innovate where you differentiate" mean?
It’s the “Focus” step of Stephen’s FAST Innovation model. Rather than trying to improve every part of your business, you concentrate innovation on what truly sets you apart. Stephen evaluates your differentiator through five lenses — Distinctive, Durable, Dynamic, Desirable, and Disseminated — to prioritize where innovation investment pays off most. (This work draws on his book Pivotal.)
Will our team be able to continue the work after the engagement?
Yes. Stephen’s goal is to transfer the methodology to your team, not create a dependency. He works alongside your people so they can define challenges, ask better questions, and run the process themselves once the engagement ends.
How do I explore consulting with Stephen Shapiro?
You can start the conversation by visiting the Contact page or calling 407-476-5373. Consulting is tailored to your needs, with options ranging from an Advisory Package to Full Support.